Daijiworld Media Network - Washington

Washington, Mar 11: Meta should take stronger action to tackle the growing spread of fake content created using artificial intelligence (AI) on its platforms, the company’s own advisory body has said.

The 21-member Meta Oversight Board raised the concern while criticising the social media giant for leaving up an AI-generated video that falsely claimed extensive damage had been caused in Haifa, Israel by Iranian forces without adding any warning label.

The board called on Meta to overhaul its AI content rules, warning that the rise of fabricated videos related to global military conflicts was “challenging the public’s ability to distinguish fabrication from fact” and could lead to widespread distrust of information.

Meta said it would add a label to the video within seven days.

Meta created the oversight board in 2020 as a semi-independent body to review content moderation decisions across its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The board frequently disagrees with the company’s moderation decisions, while Meta has gradually eased its approach to policing content, raising questions about how much authority the board actually holds.

According to the board, the handling of the Haifa video highlighted problems previously flagged regarding “inefficiencies in Meta’s current approach during armed conflicts”.

Currently, Meta largely depends on users to disclose when the content they post has been generated using AI tools. If not disclosed, the company typically waits for complaints from users before its moderation team reviews the material and decides whether to apply a label.

The oversight board said Meta should take a far more proactive approach and label AI-generated content “much more frequently”.

It noted that the company’s current system is “neither robust nor comprehensive enough to contend with the scale and velocity of AI-generated content, particularly during crises or conflicts when engagement on the platform is high”.

The review was triggered by a video posted last June by a Facebook account based in the Philippines that described itself as a news source.

The clip was among several AI-generated videos circulating online after a conflict broke out in the region, with posts supporting both Israeli and Iranian narratives. According to a BBC analysis at the time, such videos collectively attracted at least 100 million views.

Despite multiple user complaints, Meta did not initially label the video — which received nearly one million views — as AI-generated or remove it.

It was only after a user appealed directly to the oversight board that the issue was reviewed.

Meta initially argued the video did not need a label because it did not “directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm”. The board rejected this reasoning, stating that the threshold for labeling AI-generated content should be lower, especially during armed conflicts.

The board ruled that the video should have carried a “high risk AI label”.

In response, Meta said it would follow the board’s recommendations if it encounters identical content in the same context in the future.