Oversight committee attacks Meta’s ‘incoherent’ policy on misleadingly manipulated videos as too focused on AI

Meta’s oversight board has found that a Facebook video wrongfully suggesting that the US president, Joe Biden, is a paedophile does not violate the company’s current rules while deeming those rules “incoherent” and too narrowly focused on AI-generated content.

The board, which is funded by Meta – Facebook’s parent company – but run independently, took on the Biden video case in October in response to a user complaint about an altered seven-second video of the president. Mark Zuckerberg at a Senate judiciary committee hearing at the US Capitol in Washington DC

It ruled that Meta was right to leave the video up under its current policy, which bars misleadingly altered videos only if they were produced by artificial intelligence or if they make people appear to say words they never actually said.

But the ruling is the first to critique Meta’s policy on “manipulated media” amid rising concerns about the potential use of new AI technologies to sway elections this year.

It said the policy “is lacking in persuasive justification, is incoherent and confusing to users, and fails to clearly specify the harms it is seeking to prevent”. It suggested Meta update it to cover both audio and video content and to apply labels identifying it as manipulated regardless of whether AI was used.

  • Silverseren
    67•11 months ago

    I seem to remember Facebook actively taking down videos critical of Trump back in 2016 and 2020. Hmm…

    • chaogomu
      34•11 months ago

      Joel Kaplan.

      In May 2011 Facebook hired Kaplan as its vice president of U.S. public policy, as part of a Facebook’s effort to “strengthen” the company’s ties to Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.[16][17] In October 2014, Kaplan succeeded Marne Levine as Facebook’s vice president of global public policy.[18]

      Within the company, Kaplan advocated against restrictions on racially incendiary speech.[19] He played an important role in crafting an exception for newsworthy political discourse when deciding on whether content violated the community guidelines.[19] During the 2016 election, Kaplan advocated against closing down Facebook groups which allegedly peddled fake news.[19] Kaplan argued that getting rid of the groups would have disproportionately targeted conservatives.[19][3] During and after the 2016 US presidential election, Kaplan argued against Facebook publicly disclosing the extent of Russian influence operations on the platform.[20]

      In 2017, after Facebook had implemented changes to its algorithm to expose users to more content by family and friends and less by publishers who were determined by Facebook to engage in misinformation, Kaplan questioned whether the algorithm disproportionately hurt conservative publishers and successfully advocated for Facebook to change the algorithm again.[19]

      He pushed against a proposed Facebook project that was intended to make Facebook users of different political views engage with each other in less hostile ways. Kaplan argued that this feature would lead conservatives to accuse Facebook of bias.[7][5] Kaplan also reportedly advocated on behalf of Breitbart News and the Daily Caller within Facebook.[5][6] Kaplan has helped to place conservatives in key positions in the leadership of Facebook.[3]

      In 2018, he advocated strongly for the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.[21] Kaplan sat behind Kavanaugh during his Senate confirmation hearings.[21]

      During Donald Trump’s presidency, Kaplan was on friendly terms with the administration.[20] At one point, the administration considered nominating him as head of the Office of Management and Budget.[20]

        • chaogomu
          12•11 months ago

          I even left out this bit.

          Kaplan worked as a policy advisor on George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, during which he was a participant in the Brooks Brothers riot on November 22, 2000.[11]

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot

          Not a single person involved in the riot went to jail over it, and most got jobs with Bush’s White House.