Meta Oversight Board Calls Firm’s Deepfake Rule "Incoherent"

Meta's Oversight Board has ruled that a Facebook video wrongfully suggesting that US President Joe Biden is a pedophile does not violate the company's current rules.

The board took on the case in response to a user complaint about an altered video of President Biden posted on Meta's social network. I Photo: President Joe Biden

However, the board criticized Meta's rules as "incoherent" and too narrowly focused on AI-generated content. The ruling comes amid rising concerns about the potential use of new AI technologies to influence elections.

The board took on the case in response to a user complaint about an altered video of President Biden posted on Meta's social network.

This ruling marks the first addressing Meta's "manipulated media" policy, which bars certain types of doctored videos.

According to the board, Meta's policy "is lacking in persuasive justification, is incoherent and confusing to users, and fails to clearly specify the harms it is seeking to prevent."

It suggested updating the rule to cover both audio and video content, regardless of whether AI was used, and applying labels identifying manipulated content.

However, it stopped short of extending the policy to photographs, cautioning that doing so may make enforcement difficult at Meta's scale. Meta informed the board during the review that it planned to update the policy "to respond to the evolution of new and increasingly realistic AI," according to the ruling.

WEEKLY FEATURE : Jose Mari Chan And The Christmas Anthem