(Credit: Bumble Dee/Shutterstock.com)
Meta's self-appointed Oversight Board will conduct layoffs expected to impact its research support staff soon, The Washington Post reports.
The board has 22 official members but also includes support staff who assist the board, which is focused on overseeing Meta's content-moderation decisions across its apps and platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and WhatsApp. It's currently unclear if the board itself would see any cuts and how many staff will be laid off, however. An Oversight Board representative tells PCMag that exactly who will be laid off has yet to be determined and says the cuts are part of the board's natural evolution.
“The Board continues to be one of the leading content moderation organizations in the world and Meta remains committed to its ongoing success," says Stephen Neal, chairperson of the Oversight Board's trust.
Is the Oversight Board cutting staff to cut costs, like so many other tech firms? Meta isn't exactly strapped for cash; according to its most recent earnings report, it raked in over $12.3 billion in net income this past quarter. It's unclear whether or to what extent the Oversight Board has tapped into its $150 million trust to fund its content-moderation efforts—or how much of that funding issued in 2022 remains today (it also got $130 million when it first launched in 2019).
"The Board is fully confident that the company will provide additional funding in the future,” Neal adds, without sharing details on the board's current financial health.
Meta Communications Director Andy Stone (recently "sentenced" to six years in prison in absentia over Meta's content-moderation decisions), tells the Post that Meta is still committed to supporting the Oversight Board despite the looming layoffs.
"We value the Board’s perspective, have implemented all their binding content decisions to date and will continue to update our policies and practices in response to their feedback," Stone says.
The board tells PCMag it addressed 53 cases last year and will continue to hold the tech giant that funds it to account. Earlier this month, the board announced it was investigating Meta's decisions surrounding AI-generated nude deepfakes of two real-life women. Prior to the investigation, Meta removed one of the reported deepfakes but allowed the other to remain viewable until it was eventually flagged by the board and taken down.
In the past, Meta's Oversight Board said that a fake video of President Joe Biden could stay on Facebook, claiming the video's edits were "obvious and therefore unlikely to mislead."