Facebook has been given a scathing warning by its own watchdog over a “cross-check” system for celebrities.
Facebook’s oversight board said the company failed to provide information on how it makes decisions about content posted by its high-profile users.
It also said it would accept requests from Facebook itself to review the system and make recommendations on how it could be changed.
It also criticized Facebook for failing to answer other questions from the board, saying it was hindering efforts to “provide users and researchers with as much information as possible about how the company works”. was putting
Cross-Check is a system used by Facebook to assign special rules to the site’s most high-profile users. It’s unclear how those high-profile users are chosen, or how the system actually works.
Interest in the system has grown since recent reports in the Wall Street Journal that were part of a series of revelations, including research from Facebook that the company knew Instagram could harm young girls.
In the wake of those disclosures, the oversight board said it would look into “whether Facebook was coming forward in its responses to its cross-check system”.
It was found that “the team providing information within Facebook is not fully exposed upon cross-check”. “On some occasions, Facebook failed to provide relevant information to the Board, while in other instances, the information it provided was incomplete,” it said.
It pointed to the fact that despite being asked by the Oversight Board to look into the decision to ban Donald Trump from Facebook, and the presumption that the former president would be covered by the cross-check system, Facebook provided the information. Time did not mention it. in that case.
Facebook has also been criticized for suggesting that the cross-check only applies to “a small number of decisions” when the oversight provides information to the board.
The watchdog also said that Facebook had failed to provide “any meaningful transparency on the criteria for accounts or Pages being selected for cross-checking”.
The Oversight Board was set up by Facebook to review its decisions, and has been compared to the Supreme Court. Although it is funded by Facebook, it says it is run completely independently.
It said that its “reliability” as well as its “working relationship with Facebook, and our ability to deliver sound judgments on matters all depend on being able to trust that the information provided to us by Facebook is accurate. , is comprehensive, and presents a complete picture in the hands of the subject”.
The oversight board said it will continue to work to ensure that Facebook is providing the appropriate information it needs to do its job, as well as working to understand how the cross-check system can be improved. Is.
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Credit: www.independent.co.uk /
