Meta has replied to the Oversight Board’s thousands of suggestions addressing its contentious cross-check programme, which shields high-profile users from the company’s automatic content moderation systems. Meta agreed to accept several of the board’s ideas in its answer, but rejected to implement measures that would have improved openness about who is in the programme.
Meta’s answer comes after the program’s board was chastised for placing “commercial interests” over human rights. While the corporation described the technique as a “second layer of review” to assist it avoid mistakes, the Oversight Board remarked that cross-check cases are sometimes so backlogged that hazardous information is remained up for significantly longer than it would be otherwise.
Meta decided to at least partially implement 26 of the 32 proposals. These include adjustments to how cross-check cases are handled internally at the corporation, as well as vows to provide more information about the programme to the Oversight Board. In addition, the corporation promised to eliminate the backlog of cases.
Nevertheless, Meta did not follow the Oversight Board’s advice to publicly reveal politicians, state actors, companies, and other public figures who profit from cross-check safeguards. The corporation stated that publicly exposing specifics about the programme “may result in a slew of unforeseen effects, rendering it both unworkable and unsustainable,” and that it would open the door to being “game(d)” by undesirable actors.
Similarly, the corporation denied or did not agree to proposals that would warn individuals that they are being cross-checked. Meta dismissed a suggestion that it compel cross-check users to make “an additional, explicit commitment” to respect the company’s guidelines. And Meta said it was “evaluating the feasibility” of a suggestion that users opt out of cross-checking (which would also, naturally, notify them that they are part of the program). “We will work with our Human Rights and Civil Rights teams to evaluate solutions to solve this problem in order to improve user autonomy regarding cross-check,” the business added.
While Meta’s reaction demonstrates that the firm is eager to make modifications to one of its most contentious projects, it also highlights the corporation’s unwillingness to make important cross-check facts public. This is also consistent with the Oversight Board’s prior complaint, which accused the corporation of not being “completely transparent” concerning cross-check last year.
