The board, which is run independently of Meta and funded through a grant by the company, described the policy as “incoherent, lacking in persuasive justification and inappropriately focused on how content has been created, rather than on which specific harms it aims to prevent.”
The recommendation came as part of the board’s review of Meta’s decision to leave up a manipulated video of President Biden on Facebook that was edited to make it appear as though he was inappropriately touching his granddaughter.
The Meta Oversight Board ultimately upheld Meta’s decision on the Facebook video, finding that it did not violate the company’s manipulated media policy because the policy only applies to videos created with artificial intelligence (AI) that show people saying things they never said.
“Since the video in this post was not altered using AI and it shows President Biden doing something he did not do (not something he didn’t say), it does not violate the existing policy,” the board noted.
“Additionally, the alteration of this video clip is obvious and therefore unlikely to mislead the ‘average user’ of its authenticity, which, according to Meta, is a key characteristic of manipulated media,” it added.
However, the board argued that the
current policy is too narrow and should be extended to cover audio and audiovisual content, content that shows people doing things they never did and content regardless of how it was created.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
