Meta’s Oversight Board is once again adopting the social network’s rules on AI-generated content. The board accepted two cases that deal with explicit images of public figures created by AI.
Although Meta’s rules already prohibit nudity on Facebook and Instagram, the board said in a statement that it wanted to determine whether “Meta’s policies and enforcement practices are effective in combating explicit images.” generated by AI. Sometimes referred to as “deepfake porn,” AI-generated images of female celebrities, politicians and other public figures have become an increasingly prevalent form of online harassment and have sparked a wave of . With these two cases, the Supervisory Board could push Meta to adopt new rules to combat this harassment on its platform.
The Oversight Board said it was not naming the two public figures at the center of each case to avoid further harassment, although it described the circumstances surrounding each position.
One case involves an Instagram post showing an AI-generated image of a nude Indian woman that was posted by an account that “only shares AI-generated images of Indian women.” The post was reported to Meta, but the report was closed after 48 hours because it was not reviewed. The same user appealed this decision, but the appeal was also closed and never revisited. Meta ultimately deleted the post after the user appealed to the Oversight Board and the board agreed to take on the matter.
The second case involved a Facebook post in a group dedicated to AI art. The post in question showed “an AI-generated image of a naked woman with a man groping her breast.” The woman was supposed to resemble “an American public figure” whose name also appeared in the post’s caption. The post was automatically deleted because it had already been reported and Meta’s internal systems were able to match it to the previous post. The user appealed the takedown decision, but the appeal was “automatically closed.” The user then appealed to the Supervisory Board, which agreed to examine the case.
In a statement, Supervisory Board co-chair Helle Thorning-Schmidt said the board reviewed the two cases from different countries to assess potential disparities in how Meta’s policies are applied. “We know that Meta is faster and more effective at moderating content in some markets and languages than in others,” Thorning-Schmidt said. “By taking one case from the United States and one from India, we want to see if Meta protects all women in the world fairly. »
The Oversight Board is seeking public comment over the next two weeks and will release its decision in the coming weeks, along with its policy recommendations for Meta. A similar process involving deceptively edited video recently led Meta to accept more AI-generated content on its platform.
