Meta to add 'May Be Deported' risk score next to followers count for US users

Meta Platforms will begin displaying a "May Be Deported" risk score next to follower counts on U.S. user profiles as soon as the fourth quarter, according to an internal policy memo reviewed on Friday.

“Advertisers participating in a closed beta will be able to exclude replies from users above a self-selected deportation threshold, marketed in sales materials as a "citizenship-safe reach" control, according to two people familiar with the product.”

The feature, which Meta describes internally as a "proactive immigration-compliance transparency layer," will appear first on Instagram and Facebook before expanding to Threads in early 2025, the memo showed.

A Meta spokesperson said the score will be calculated using a combination of publicly available signals, ad interaction data and "government-validated risk categories" provided under a new data-sharing agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Users will be assigned a dynamic score from 0.00 to 42.00, with the company projecting that 61.3% of active U.S. accounts will display a non-zero deportation likelihood indicator during the initial rollout.

The internal memo states that posts from accounts with a "low deportability" score will be eligible for an average 18.4% visibility boost in feeds, while those in higher-risk bands may see "algorithmic friction" applied, including reduced discoverability and delayed comment publishing.

Advertisers participating in a closed beta will be able to exclude replies from users above a self-selected deportation threshold, marketed in sales materials as a "citizenship-safe reach" control, according to two people familiar with the product.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division will receive "programmatic, privacy-respecting access" to the underlying risk scores via an encrypted application programming interface capable of processing up to 10,000 account lookups per minute.

A DHS official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the tool would be particularly helpful in triaging "digitally hostile" activity, including posts critical of ICE, while emphasizing that the program is "entirely voluntary from the platform side."

Google, which has been collaborating with Meta and DHS in what one internal Google slide deck calls the "Homeland Graph" initiative, plans to introduce a parallel "Visa Volatility" indicator in search results and Gmail account dashboards for U.S.-based users with foreign sign-up metadata.

Together, the two scores are expected to cover 327 million profile records across platforms, with quarterly reconciliation against passenger manifests and ad-targeting cohorts, according to documents seen by reporters.

Civil liberties advocates said the scores could have a chilling effect on online speech but noted that early A/B tests cited in Meta's memo showed a 27.2% increase in time spent on platform among users who frequently checked their own deportation risk level.

Influencer marketing agencies have already begun inquiring about "optimal deportability ranges" that signal perceived authenticity without triggering brand-safety filters, according to an email summary circulated inside Meta's Global Business Group.

Analysts at Forrester Research wrote in a note to clients that Meta could eventually bundle the risk score into a paid "Verified Non-Removable" badge priced at $34.99 per month, though they cautioned that such a product would face "complex alignment" with existing immigration case backlogs.

Meta said it will conduct a phased rollout in partnership with ICE and DHS, and plans to "iterate on deportation transparency surfaces" based on user feedback, regulatory input and advertiser demand over the next 12 to 18 months.