Meta faced criticism from the Oversight Board which pulled the company up for weak measures regarding flagging posts on the Iran War that were AI deepfakes, according to NDTV.
The Board asked Meta to step up its content moderation with regards to the aforementioned issue amid escalating tensions between Iran, Israel and the US as well as other countries in the Middle East region such as Bahrain, Lebanon, UAE and more who are also weathering attacks.
The Board highlighted that having access to accurate information during this critical global event was crucial and that misinformation in the form of doctored and misleading content can impact public perception and understanding.
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This bleeds into influencing the overall societal impact of these ongoing events making it difficult for people to differentiate between reality and fiction.
“The risks are heightened when deepfake output designed to deceive, manipulate or increase engagement is shared during conflicts and crises,” the Board said.
The Board also asked for improved transparency on AI deepfake labelling, asking Meta to take further steps to counteract the problem.
"This includes providing details at scale about the origin of media, based on content provenance standards, investing in stronger detection tools and developing better methods for appropriate labelling,” the Board said.
It recommended that Meta create a set of rules geared towards AI-generated content. It further stated that the company should "amend its current policies to ensure a timely and adequate response to deceptive AI-generated output."
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It further asked the company to strike a balance between moderating hateful and false information and facilitating freedom of expression.
“The industry needs coherence in helping users distinguish deceptive AI-generated content, and platforms should address abusive accounts and pages sharing such output,” it said.
It also called for improved support for fact checkers and more consistent action regarding the use of Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) framework. C2PA embeds technical metadata of digital media that helps platforms trace their origin and implement proper labels.
The Oversight Board was described by Zuckerberg as a sort of 'Supreme Court' for Meta-owned platforms that engage in monitoring precedent setting and content moderation for them.
Prominent members of the Board include former Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former judge of US Court of Appeals Michael W. McConnell and Vice-Chancellor of the National Law School of India University Sudhir Krishnaswamy, among others.
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