Meta Makes Significant Changes to Manipulated Media Policy
April 5, 2024
The Oversight Board welcomes Meta’s announcement that it will fully implement all three of the content moderation changes we recommended in our recent decision related to an altered video of President Biden.
In our decision, we urged Meta to stop removing manipulated media when the content doesn’t violate another policy and instead apply a label indicating that the content is significantly altered.
Our decision also called on Meta to close gaps in its Manipulated Media policy. We recommended that Meta expand this policy to cover audio and audiovisual content, content showing people doing things they did not do (as well as saying things they did not say) and content regardless of how it was created or altered.
While it is always important to find ways to preserve freedom of expression while protecting against demonstrable offline harm, it is especially critical to do so in the context of such an important year for elections.
As such, we are pleased that Meta will begin labeling a wider range of video, audio, and image content as “made with AI” when they detect AI image indicators or when people indicate they have uploaded AI content. This will provide people with greater context and transparency for more types of manipulated media, while also removing posts which violate Meta’s rules in other ways.
With the volume of misleading content rising and the quality of tools to create it is rapidly increasing, platforms must keep pace with these changes. Today’s commitments from Meta reflect this and represent significant changes in how it treats manipulated content on Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
We will continue to monitor Meta’s implementation and provide a comprehensive assessment of how Meta has complied with these recommendations in a future transparency report.
Background
The Oversight Board is an independent deliberative body comprising global experts that hold Meta accountable to its Community Standards for Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as well as to its human rights commitments. The Board has contractually binding authority over Meta’s decisions to remove or leave content up on its platforms. The Board also issues non-binding recommendations that shape Meta’s policies to ensure the company is more transparent, enforces its rules evenly and treats users more fairly. The Oversight Board decisions are approved by the majority of the Board and do not necessarily represent the personal views of all Members. Meta has 60 days to respond to the Board’s recommendations.
