It is the best of times; it is the worst of times. Meta’s supposed commitment to freedom of expression by ditching professional fact-checkers leaves New Zealand property investors facing a paradox: making it easier to share information online inevitably makes it harder to trust what we see online. The only way to preserve and maximise our interests is to become more intentional about how we navigate the internet, especially when our rental portfolios are at stake.

With Meta’s shift to Community Notes, your Facebook feed is about to get messier than a student flat after orientation week #nohate. With 3.5 million Kiwis (72 per cent of us) scrolling Facebook monthly, we meet the moment by having a deliberate strategy for consuming and verifying property investment information.

Community moderation

Community moderation isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff. Wikipedia and Reddit have been doing it for years. But here’s the distinction that makes the difference - these platforms were built for it from day one, like a house designed with good bones. Meta and X? They’re more like trying to retrofit a 1970s bach into a modern rental. Don’t get me started on stuffing that insulation into those tight corners.

For us kitchen-bench landlords (you know who you are, spreadsheet open next to last night’s dinner dishes), this means we need to get savvier about how we consume information online. Property investment isn’t just another social media trend – get it wrong, and you’re facing Tenancy Tribunal hearings or hefty regulatory fines.The good news? This isn’t rocket science. The bad news? It does require actual effort.

Be careful what you believe

Cultivate your BS detector. Before taking any property advice from Facebook as gospel, ask yourself: Is this person actually from NZ? Do they have skin in the game? And most importantly – what’s their angle? Someone pushing “secret property strategies” probably has more interest in their course sales than your portfolio’s success. And if that self-proclaimed property accountant is posting daily dissertations during business hours, you’ve got to ask yourself if they’re doing any actual accounting.

The numbers tell the story. While 800,000 Kiwis use Reddit and two million visit Wikipedia monthly, Facebook’s 3.5 million user base makes it our property information superhighway. Those ‘dinosaur’ institutions like property investors associations and REINZ? Turns out they’re not so prehistoric after all. While Facebook goes through its identity crisis, these organisations remain steady vessels in increasingly choppy information waters.

Let’s be real – the property information landscape is changing faster than Auckland house prices since forever. Meta’s move towards community moderation might wave the flag of free speech, but remember – freedom to opine often gets confused with freedom to make up facts. Just because someone can post about property investment doesn’t mean they should.

For kitchen-bench investors like us, this means going back to basics. Yes, use Facebook for what it’s good at – networking, quick tips, market pulse. But treat it like those ‘as is where is’ listings – with healthy scepticism and due diligence.

Your action plan?

Keep it simple:

• cross-check everything against official channels
• build real-world relationships with other investors (yes, actual face-to-face conversations!)
• join your local property investors association (they’ve been at this longer than Zuckerberg)
• before sharing or saving advice, ask yourself: “What’s in it for them?”

Remember: your property portfolio deserves better than unverified Facebook advice. In this brave new world of community moderation, the winners won’t be the ones who scroll the fastest, but those who scroll the smartest.