Meta Platforms’ Oversight Board on April 23 sharply rebuked the Facebook and Instagram owner over a policy overhaul in January that cut fact-checking and eased curbs on discussions of contentious topics such as immigration and gender identity. The board, which operates independently but is funded by Meta, urged the world's biggest social media company to assess “potential adverse effects” of the changes, put in place just before President Donald Trump began his second term. It cited concerns that Meta had announced the changes “hastily, in a departure from regular procedure, with no public information shared as to what, if any, prior human rights due diligence the company performed.”

The Oversight Board published 11 case decisions overnight Wednesday, marking the first cases to take into account the policy and enforcement changes announced by the Facebook and Instagram parent company at the start of the year. “Our decisions note concerns that Meta’s January 7, 2025, policy and enforcement changes were announced hastily, in a departure from regular procedure, with no public information shared as to what, if any, prior human rights due diligence the company performed,” the board wrote in a release. The board points specifically to Meta’s decision to drop some LGBTQ protections from its hate speech rules amid a wider overhaul of content moderation practices. Under the changes, Meta now allows users to accuse LGBTQ individuals of being mentally ill despite otherwise prohibiting such content.

The independent oversight board for Meta is calling for the company to analyze the “human rights impact” of its January changes removing fact checking and promoting “free expression.” The oversight team, an independent board of advisors that weighs in on how Meta’s community standards and guidelines are applied, published decisions this week over how Meta responded in 11 cases, including a “comment targeting people with Down syndrome,” “posts supporting [United Kingdom] riots,” and more. Paolo Carozza, the Meta advisory board co-chairman, shared in an interview with the Washington Examiner that the board doesn’t want to censor content but will do so when a “substantial connection to tangible harm” is seen. “If there’s a direct and likely causation of a certain kind of real-world harm from the speech attacking other people physically, then we would draw the line,” Carozza said, referencing the board’s ruling on banning posts in support of the U.K. riots against Muslim migrants.