Meta was told to label any media that featured edits of politicians generated by artificial intelligence.
The Oversight Board, an organization created by Meta to oversee what content the company removes from Facebook and Instagram, ruled on Monday that Meta had to leave AI-generated media designed to deceive the public on its platforms but that it had to label them as such.
This ruling focused on a video posted to Facebook in May 2023 in which the user edited the footage to make it look like President Joe Biden was inappropriately touching his granddaughter. The unaltered footage featured Biden giving his granddaughter an “I voted” sticker.
Meta initially decided that the footage did not breach its rules since it was not a “deepfake,” which it considers to be a video in which the speaker’s audio was modified. The board upheld Meta’s decision on the grounds that the video did not show Biden “saying words he did not say” or “doing something he did not do” but implored the company to update its “incoherent” and “confusing” policy on deepfakes.
“As it stands, the policy makes little sense,” Oversight Board Co-Chairman Michael McConnell said in a statement. “It bans altered videos that show people saying things they do not say, but does not prohibit posts depicting an individual doing something they did not do. It only applies to video created through AI, but lets other fake content off the hook.”
“Perhaps most worryingly, it does not cover audio fakes, which are one of the most potent forms of electoral disinformation we’re seeing around the world,” McConnell added. “Meta must urgently work to close these gaps.”
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Meta confirmed it is reviewing the guidance provided by the board.
The board’s decision comes when election officials and technology companies are bracing themselves for the impact of AI-generated deepfakes on the 2024 elections. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in the fall of 2023 that he would emphasize the passage of legislation to regulate AI in political ads appropriately. Yet there has been little motion in Congress on the matter. This has left it to states and tech companies to address.
