On Friday, Meta announced plans to revise its controversial special handling of posts from celebrities, politicians, and other high-profile users on Instagram and Facebook. The company aims to implement measures that will prevent business interests from influencing its decisions. Meta committed to fully or partially adopting most of the 32 recommendations made by an independent review board, which it funds as a sort of supreme authority on content and policy decisions regarding its “cross-check” program. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, stated in a blog post, “This will result in substantial changes to how we operate this system. These actions will improve this system to make it more effective, accountable, and equitable.”
However, Meta has chosen not to publicly identify which accounts receive preferential treatment in content filtering decisions, nor will it establish a formal, open process for inclusion in the cross-check program. The company reasoned that labeling users in this program could expose them to potential abuse. These changes come in response to a December recommendation from the oversight panel, which called for a comprehensive overhaul of the cross-check system. The panel expressed concerns that the program seemed to prioritize business interests over human rights by granting special treatment to rule-breaking posts from certain users. In its report, the panel noted, “We found that the program appears more directly structured to satisfy business concerns. 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.”
In its response to the oversight board, Meta explained that the cross-check program is designed to prevent content-removal errors by adding an extra layer of human review for posts from high-profile users that initially seem to violate rules. The company emphasized its commitment to ensuring that content moderation decisions are made consistently and accurately, free from bias or external pressure. “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,” Meta stated.
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