Meta on Friday said it will modify the company's criticized special handling of posts by celebrities, politicians and other big audience Instagram or Facebook users, taking steps to avoid business interests swaying decisions.
The tech giant promised to implement in full or in part most
of the 32 changes to its "cross-check" program recommended by an
independent review board that it funds as a sort of top court for content or
policy decisions.
"This will result in substantial changes to how we
operate this system," Meta global affairs president Nick Clegg said in a
blog post.
"These actions will improve this system to make it more
effective, accountable and equitable."
Meta declined, however, to publicly label which accounts get
preferred treatment when it comes to content filtering decisions and nor will
it create a formal, open process to get into the program.
Labeling users in the cross-check program might target them
for abuse, Meta reasoned.
The changes came in response to the oversight panel in
December calling for Meta to overhaul the cross-check system, saying the
program appeared to put business interests over human rights when giving
special treatment to rule-breaking posts by certain users.
"We found that the program appears more directly
structured to satisfy business concerns," the panel said in a report at
the time.
"By providing extra protection to certain users
selected largely according to business interests, cross-check allows content
which would otherwise be removed quickly to remain up for a longer period,
potentially causing harm."
Meta told the board that the program is intended to avoid
content-removal mistakes by providing an additional layer of human review to
posts by high-profile users that initially appear to break rules, the report
said.
"We will continue to ensure that our content moderation
decisions are made as consistently and accurately as possible, without bias or
external pressure," Meta said in its response to the oversight board.
"While we acknowledge that business considerations will
always be inherent to the overall thrust of our activities, we will continue to
refine guardrails and processes to prevent bias and error in all our review
pathways and decision making structures."
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