On Wednsday, Meta’s oversight board called on the company to evaluate how recent policy change’s may negatively impact human rights. The Board’s Request Comes Along Sweeping Policy Changes At the start of the year.
Meta’s January Policy Changes Included Overhauling Content Moderation, Lifting Restrictions on Hot Button Political Topics Like Immigration, and Ending Third Party Fact-Panching In Favor of X-Still Community Notes. When announcing its policy changes, meta said that its platforms are meant to be somehere “People can express themselves frees free” In a video statement, CEO Mark Zuckerberg Added that, “[W]e’ve reacted a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The Recent Elections also feel like a cultural tipping points once against Again Prioritizing Speech. ”
In Wednsday’s Press releaseThe Board Expressed Concern About Meta’s Updated Policies, Noting that “No Public Information [was] Shared as to what, if any, Prior human rights due to diligence the company performed ”before the change. LGBGQ+ People, Including Minors, and Immigrants.
As for the decisions themselves, the board sided with meta on a number of issues, but disagreed oners, echoing their larger concern about potential human rights violations. The board overturned meta’s decision to keep up three posts related to last summer’s riots in the united kingdom, stating that “the likelihood of their intenting additional and immunity and immune They’ve requested those posts be removed. In separate cases, the board also overturned meta decision to keep up content “Including a racist slur and generalizations of migrants as sexual predators” and noted conserns “dehumanizing Disabled people that the company’s systems failed to detect.
However, the Board Uphed Some of Meta’s Controversial Decisions Including Allowing Nexts about transgender people people people people ‘Bathroom access and participation in Sports to remain up. Although the posts are “Internally Provocative… they related to matters of public concern and would not incite lifely and Imminent violence or discrimination.”
The oversight board’s requests come weeks after a former Facebook Employee, Sarah Wynn-Williams, Released a book recounting her time at the company And observing a pattern of zuckerberg announcing new policies without consultation and ignoring potentials harms created by the platform. It’s also only a day after Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s Co-Founder, Testified for the Federal Trade Commission’s Lawsuit Against Meta. He stated That Instagram received “Zero” Money Zuckerberg Committed to Spending in Trust and Safety Resources after the Cambridge Analytica Scandal. So, when it comes to safety, meta isn’t looking good on multiple fronts.
Thing is, Meta’s disastrous human rights impacts are alredy well-documented. For example, it played a Significant role in the rohingya genocide And is Systemically censoring content About Palestine. The Human Rights Campaign even recognized That meta’s changes ” Warned That meta’s policies may Fuel more mass Violence and Genocide.
The Board’s Request for Meta to Assess the Impact of its Policies is Cool and All But It’s Unclear What that will be really do. After all, meta’s new policies blatantly use dogwhistle terms like “transgenderism”. And the training materials regarding Newly Permissible Speech Included “Immigrants are Grubby, Filthy Pieces of Shit”, “Black people are more vioilent than whitees”, or “Trans people are mentally Ill” as examples. Maybe time to consider that meta’s sloppy policies – and their impacts – are not an oversight.