Meta’s Oversight Board urges increased transparency around cross-check

The Meta Oversight Board said, "To comply with Meta’s human rights commitments and address these problems, a program that corrects the most high-impact errors on Facebook and Instagram should be structured substantially differently. The Board has made 32 recommendations in this area.. As Meta seeks to improve its content moderation for all users, it should prioritize expression that is important for human rights, including expression which is of special public importance. Users that are likely to produce this kind of expression should be prioritized for inclusion in lists of entities receiving additional review above Meta’s business partners. Posts from these users should be reviewed in a separate workflow, so they do not compete with Meta’s business partners for limited resources. While the number of followers can indicate public interest in a user’s expression, a user’s celebrity or follower count should not be the sole criterion for receiving additional protection. If users included due to their commercial importance frequently post violating content, they should no longer benefit from special protection. Radically increase transparency around cross-check and how it operates. Meta should measure, audit, and publish key metrics around its cross-check program so it can tell whether the program is working effectively. The company should set out clear, public criteria for inclusion in its cross-check lists, and users who meet these criteria should be able to apply to be added to them. Some categories of entities protected by cross-check, including state actors, political candidates and business partners, should also have their accounts publicly marked. This will allow the public to hold privileged users accountable for whether protected entities are upholding their commitment to follow the rules. In addition, as around a third of content in Meta’s cross-check system could not be escalated to the Board as of May-June 2022, Meta must ensure that cross-checked content, and all other content covered by our governing documents, can be appealed to the Board. Reduce harm caused by content left up during enhanced review. Content identified as violating during Meta’s first assessment that is high severity should be removed or hidden while further review is taking place. Such content should not be allowed to remain on the platform accruing views simply because the person who posted it is a business partner or celebrity. To ensure that decisions are taken as quickly as possible, Meta should invest the resources necessary to match its review capacity to the content it identifies as requiring additional review." Reference Link