'Huge problems' with Instagram and Facebook changes, says oversight board

The co-chair of Facebook and Instagram's independent oversight board has expressed "deep concern" about the significant changes to the content allowed and how it is moderated on both platforms. Helle Thorning-Schmidt of the Meta Oversight Board told the BBC that she welcomes some of the changes, which will allow users to decide the accuracy of posts through something similar to X's "community notes."

However, on BBC Radio 4's Today program, she stated that there are "huge problems" with the announced changes, including the potential impact on the LGBTQ+ community and gender and transgender rights. "We see a lot of hate speech that can lead to real-life harm, so we will be watching this area very closely," she added.

In a blog post and a video released by the company on Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the decision was motivated by "going back to our roots around free expression." He stated that the third-party fact-checkers the company currently uses are "too politically biased," meaning too many users are being "censored."

However, Maria Ressa, a journalist and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner, said that the idea that this change will promote free speech is "absolutely false." She told AFP that the decision means social media users and democracy are "going to be in an extremely dangerous period ahead." Ms. Ressa, co-founder of the Philippine news site Rappler, said, "Only if you are driven by profit can you make that claim; only if you want power and money can you make that claim."

The decision has raised questions about whether the oversight board, co-chaired by Ms. Thorning-Schmidt, can continue to exist. The board is funded by Meta and was created by Sir Nick Clegg, then president of global affairs, who announced his departure from the company less than a week ago. Ms. Thorning-Schmidt, a former prime minister of Denmark, insisted that the board is needed now more than ever. "This is why it's good that we have an oversight board that can have a transparent discussion with Meta," she said.

Some believe that Sir Nick's departure and the changes to fact-checking are to get closer to the incoming Trump administration and catch up with the access and influence enjoyed by another tech giant, Elon Musk. Tech journalist and author Kara Swisher told the BBC that this was "the most cynical move" she had seen Mr. Zuckerberg make in her years of covering him. She said, "Facebook does whatever is in its own self-interest. He wants to curry favor with Donald Trump and catch up to Elon Musk in action."

While activists against online hate speech are dismayed by the change, some free speech advocates have welcomed the news. The US free speech group Fire said, "Meta's announcement demonstrates the marketplace of ideas at work. Its users want a social media platform that doesn't suppress political content or use top-down fact-checkers. These changes promise to reduce arbitrary moderation decisions and achieve more free speech on the Meta platform."

Following the announcement of the changes, Mr. Trump said in a press conference that he was impressed by Mr. Zuckerberg's decision, saying Meta had "made a lot of progress." When asked if Mr. Zuckerberg was "directly responding" to threats Mr. Trump had made to him in the past, the incoming US president replied, "Maybe."

Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged on Tuesday that the change in strategy carries some risks for the company. "It means we will catch less bad stuff, but we will also reduce the amount of innocent users' posts and accounts that we take down by mistake," he said in a video message.

X's more hands-off approach to content moderation has led to serious clashes with advertisers. Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, said this is also a risk for Meta. "Meta's massive scale and powerful advertising platform has somewhat shielded it from similar user and advertiser losses as X," she told the BBC. "But brand safety remains a key factor in where advertisers place their budgets - and any significant drop in engagement could damage Meta's ad business given the fierce competition for users and ad dollars."