The Media Rating Council (MRC) has revoked Meta’s brand-safety accreditation due to the tech giant’s decision to opt out of the MRC’s annual auditing program.
“After achieving initial accreditation [for] Content-Level Brand Safety In Feed in June 2025, Meta informed MRC in September 2025 they would be withdrawing from
recurring annual audits for Brand Safety,” MRC CEO and Executive Director George Ivie told Adweek in a statement last week. “As is our procedure when a service withdraws from audit,
we informed our members, revoked accreditation, and removed Meta from our site as accredited.”
As a
result, Meta has lost its MRC brand-safety accreditation for feeds on its social-media platforms Facebook and Instagram.
The company was initially awarded accreditation in June, when the MRC decided these social feeds were safe for brands, while providing reliable and accurate ad-measurement
metrics.
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“It is not at all surprising that they would no longer feel the need to pursue brand safety
accreditation,” said Arielle Garcia, COO of watchdog group Check My Ads. “They likely see it as an unnecessary expense, and perhaps as a liability, given their evolving posture and
policies relating to brand safety and content on its platforms.”
Earlier this year, Meta replaced its longstanding fact-checking program for a
controversial user-based content-moderation approach called Community Notes. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement shortly after President Donald Trump was re-elected.
The company maintains MRC accreditation for display ad impression metrics, video viewability, and invalid traffic detection measurement categories, but is more focused on
third-party and suitability metrics, according to a statement from a Meta spokesperson.
Last week, Meta
expanded third-party safety and suitability verification to
Threads ads, providing ad partners with tools and coverage from Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify, and Scope3.