Facebook pledged Thursday to apply or assess the feasibility of 16 of the 17 recommendations of its supervisory board, but refused to change its approach on disinformation and COVID-19.
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At the end of January, the independent council, a new body responsible for deciding on controversial issues of moderation of content on the platform, issued its first (binding) decisions on specific cases, and issued a series of recommendations.
He had notably estimated that Facebook should soften its application of the rules on disinformation and the pandemic, about a message withdrawn because it ensured that hydroxychloroquine was effective against COVID-19.
But the California group opposed it and maintained it would continue to remove messages containing misleading and dangerous information.
More generally, the organization, whose members are from civil society around the world, has asked the social media giant to be more transparent about these regulations and how it is applied.
Facebook, for example, deleted a message with a quote from Nazi Minister Joseph Goebbels. The author of the message protested, explaining that his intentions were political, and part of a comparison with President Donald Trump.
The social network now intends to specify in its rules that content containing hate messages will be removed unless they are unambiguously condemned in the caption.
“We are committed to implementing 11 of the council’s recent recommendations. In several cases, we are already applying them, ”Facebook said in a statement. “We are also evaluating the feasibility of 5 other recommendations”.
Facebook has been torn for years between respecting freedom of expression and the need to protect individuals from incitement to violence, online harassment and other publications that can make the platform infrequent for some users, and therefore for advertisers.
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