Oversight Board Criticizes Meta's Policy On Manipulated Media

(RTTNews) - The Oversight Board rebuked Meta Platforms (META) for the loopholes in its manipulated media policy after a video featuring U.S. President Joe Biden as a pedophile was not removed from the social media platform claiming that it does not violate the company's current rules.

The Board said that it finds the current policy "to be 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 policy should not treat 'deep fakes' differently to content altered in other ways," the Board suggested. "Meta needs to provide greater clarity on and needs to make revisions quickly, given the record number of elections in 2024."

The current manipulated media policy of the parent company of Facebook exempts parody and satire and slightly edited videos which omit or change the order of words said in a video. Also, it doesn't apply to manipulated audio.

The tech giant stated on Monday that it would review the Board's feedback and "will respond publicly to their recommendations within 60 days in accordance with the bylaws."

The policy came into focus when the Board reviewed the highly controversial video about President Biden, which was posted in October, showing Biden putting an "I Voted" sticker on his adult granddaughter's chest. In the edited version of the video, Biden was shown touching her chest repeatedly and inappropriately. However, the Board passed the verdict that Meta's decision to allow the video to stay on the platform does not violate the company's policy.

In a similar scenario, Meta had faced backlash earlier regarding an edited video featuring the then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, where she was shown as slurring her speech. The video was taken by Facebook only after many users reported it as false, triggering the platform's algorithms to automatically demote it.