Nuked Hey everyone! Nuked here. I’m excited to share the news that Facebook’s willing to reform its controversial cross-check program – but only parts of it.
The company’s response to the Oversight Board’s recommendations is to make the cross-check system “more transparent through regular reporting” as well as tweak the criteria it uses to add people to the program “to better account for human rights interests and equity.”
The Oversight Board made a total of 32 recommendations on how Facebook can improve its cross-check program last December. Facebook has agreed to fully implement 11 of those recommendations, while partially adopting 15.
This cross-check program was under fire after a 2021 report revealed that Facebook’s been using it to shield politicians, celebrities, and popular athletes from its automated moderation system. According to Facebook, the system lets the company apply “additional levels of human review” to posts shared by high-profile figures in an attempt to avoid wrongly removing them.
The Oversight Board criticized the program and Facebook agreed to implement recommendations that require it to take immediate action on cross-checked content “identified as potentially severely violating.” It also committed to reducing the cross-check program’s backlog.
However, Facebook is still “assessing the feasibility” of a rule that would allow figures to opt out of the cross-check program, and isn’t going through with five recommendations, including a suggestion to “publicly mark” some of the figures benefitting from the program. It also rejected the Oversight Board’s recommendation to notify users that it might take longer for Facebook to take action when they report a post from someone in the cross-check program.
The Oversight Board calls Facebook’s response a “landmark moment” but isn’t completely satisfied with the changes. “We will continue to react to Facebook’s specific responses in the days and weeks to come,” they said.
