Public Comments Portal
Explicit AI Images of Female Public Figures
Please note: the public comment window for this case is open for 14 days, closing at 23:59 your local time on Tuesday 30 April.
To respect their rights and mitigate risks of furthering harassment of the women depicted in these posts, the Board requests that public comments avoid naming or otherwise sharing private information about third parties or speculating on the identities of the people depicted in the content of these cases.
Case description
These cases concern two content decisions made by Meta, one on Instagram and one on Facebook, which the Oversight Board intends to address together. For each case, the Board will decide whether the content should be allowed on Instagram or Facebook.
The first case involves an AI-generated image of a nude woman posted on Instagram. The image has been created using artificial intelligence (AI) to resemble a public figure from India. The account that posted this content only shares AI-generated images of Indian women. The majority of users who reacted have accounts in India, where deepfakes are increasingly a problem.
In this case, a user reported the content to Meta for pornography. This report was automatically closed because it was not reviewed within 48 hours. The same user then appealed Meta’s decision to leave up the content but this was also automatically closed and so the content remained up. The user then appealed to the Board. As a result of the Board selecting this case, Meta determined that its decision to leave the content up was in error and removed the post for violating the Bullying and Harassment Community Standard.
The second case concerns an image posted to a Facebook group for AI creations. It features an AI-generated image of a nude woman with a man groping her breast. The image has been created with AI to resemble an American public figure, who is also named in the caption. The majority of users who reacted have accounts in the United States.
In this case, a different user had already posted this image, which led to it being escalated to Meta’s policy or subject matter experts who decided to remove the content as a violation of the Bullying and Harassment policy, specifically for “derogatory sexualized photoshop or drawings.” The image was added to a Media Matching Service Bank – part of Meta’s automated enforcement system that automatically finds and removes images that have already been identified by human reviewers as breaking Meta’s rules. Therefore, in this case, the image was already considered a violation of Facebook’s Community Standards and removed. The user who posted the content appealed but the report was automatically closed. The user then appealed to the Board.
The Board selected these cases to assess whether Meta’s policies and its enforcement practices are effective at addressing explicit AI-generated imagery. This case aligns with the Board’s Gender strategic priority.
Share your thoughts
The Board would appreciate public comments that address:
- The nature and gravity of harms posed by deepfake pornography including how those harms affect women, especially women who are public figures.
- Contextual information about the use and prevalence of deepfake pornography globally, including in the United States and India.
- Strategies for how Meta can address deepfake pornography on its platforms, including the policies and enforcement processes that may be most effective.
- Meta’s enforcement of its “derogatory sexualized photoshop or drawings” rule in the Bullying and Harassment policy, including the use of Media Matching Service Banks.
- The challenges of relying on automated systems that automatically close appeals in 48 hours if no review has taken place.
What do I need to submit a public comment?
The Oversight Board will share updates when a case and policy has been selected by the Board Members to review. As cases are assigned to panels, the Oversight Board will post a brief, anonymized description of the cases under review on the Oversight Board website. For up to 14 days after this posting, individuals and organization have an opportunity to share their insights. For expedited cases, this timeframe will be shortened.
The case descriptions are based on the information provided to the Board by users and Facebook as part of the appeals process, and are being posted before panels begin deliberation to provide time for public comment. As such, they reflect neither the Board’s assessment of the case, nor the full array of policy issues that a panel might consider to be implicated by the case. A panel may decide to post additional information relating to the case, with an updated deadline for submission of comments.
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The Oversight Board expects to receive a large volume of submissions and will review this initial process once the Oversight Board has a better understanding of needs and resources. The panels reviewing cases will consider submissions at their sole discretion, and do not expect to be able to consider every submission in their deliberations.
Acceptable languages to submit public comments
What is the deadline to submit a public comment for this case?
Why are public comments important and what are they used for?
The Oversight Board is committed to bringing diverse perspectives from third parties into our case and policy review process. To that end, the Oversight Board has established a public comment process to invite subject matter experts and interested groups to share relevant research and information that may help the Oversight Board deliberate specific cases. This input will allow Board Members to tap into more knowledge, expertise and context covering a variety of issues and geographies.