Meta recently announced a major Facebook algorithm update designed to restrict the reach—and revenue potential—of "unoriginal" content.

What’s unoriginal content? Essentially, if your posts lean on recycled or repurposed work from others, your News Feed visibility and your eligibility for monetization will soon take a serious hit.

Fortunately for most social media pros, Facebook’s crackdown zeros in specifically on serial reposters—accounts that habitually grab others’ videos, photos, or even text, and upload them with little more than a new watermark.

"We love it when creators reshare content, add commentary in a reaction video or join in on a trend, adding their unique take. What we want to combat is the repeated reposting of content from other creators without permission or meaningful enhancements." —Facebook

How is Facebook implementing these changes?

1. Detecting duplicate videos and "reducing the distribution of the copies so that original creators can get the visibility that they deserve." Facebook is also exploring a feature that would apply an attribution link pointing back to the original from the duplicate post.

   • It's important to note that reaction videos, transformative edits, and commentary are NOT getting the boot.

2. Penalizing accounts that reuse someone else’s posts repeatedly. This includes losing access to Facebook monetization programs and receiving "reduced distribution on everything they share."

So, what should you do?

Here's a quick checklist to make sure you maximize your FB strategy and stay in line with the goals behind this update:

• Focus on posting original content: Focus on sharing videos, images, or text you created yourself.

• Add meaningful enhancements: It's okay to use creative editing or add meaningful commentary to reshared post. But if you're simply posting someone else's video and adding your own logo to it, you could see negative impact.

• Avoid watermarks: Other platforms really don't like it when you post a TikTok video to their feeds. Be sure to upload original videos and avoid reposting content that includes another platforms watermark.

• Get permission: If you’re collaborating with creators or using UGC, get explicit permission. Consider going the extra mile with by adding new commentary or creativity to the post, too.

• Reference the new post-level insights: The Professional Dashboard in Facebook will now provide transparency into any restrictions on your post.

Why it matters

Meta wants to curate a creator-first ecosystem—and to stay one step ahead of AI content farms and impersonators.

For marketers, this means doubling down on originality is the best strategy for getting the best results possible.