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The Meta company intends to deal differently with the controversial posts made by personalities on Facebook and Instagram, after it received criticism from its oversight board, without implementing some of the board’s recommendations related to transparency, according to a company statement on Friday, March 3, 2023.
Meta usually immediately deletes any post or photo that may violate its policies. However, it deals in a special way with some organizations, politicians, presidents, advertisers, journalists and celebrities, as it takes more time to look at their publications in order to avoid making any hasty decisions in their regard.
Meta’s oversight board, a body described as independent but funded by the company, criticized the concessions in December, accusing Meta of putting its economic interests above the importance of content moderation.
The board proposed 32 recommendations to make the oversight program called “Cross Check” more transparent and fair.
And the company announced on Friday that it will implement 26 recommendations partially or completely, while it will study the extent to which one of the recommendations can be implemented. Meta refused to implement the other five recommendations.
Meta refused to stop the special treatment it gives to a number of personalities for commercial reasons, as they pay the company for its services or attract large numbers of users on the platform. The company says that stopping the privilege would “make the characters potential targets for bad users.”
The company also refused to implement a formal procedure that would allow individuals, including government officials, to file a request for Cross Check on their account.
Likewise, the company owned by Mark Zuckerberg refused to prevent its government relations team from making decisions about whether certain personalities should be included in the list of names receiving special treatment, after the oversight board indicated that this leads to a conflict of interest.
In exchange, META agreed to limit the visibility of potentially controversial posts pending review, and to distinguish between users who should be protected for human rights reasons such as NGOs and journalists, or those who should be protected for commercial reasons.
Meta also intends to adjust its operating systems for faster decision-making and regular reporting on the Cross-Check program.
