Critics see the move as an attempt to cater to the incoming Trump administration and avoid political retaliation, suggesting the consequences of Meta’s new policies could have serious implications for the types of posts, hateful and violent speech, and misinformation that can spread even faster than they already do across Meta’s platforms.

The backlash has been swift. Interest in searches related to getting off Meta platforms soared this week, particularly in the last two days. Google searches for terms like “how to permanently delete facebook” hit a maximum score of 100 — the highest level of interest possible on Google Trends.