Apparently misleading protest videos are now welcome to remain on Facebook. Meta’s Oversight Board has ruled that the company had decided to leave down a doctored video that featured footage of a Serbian protest to make it appear as if it had taken place in Holland and was in support of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. A user reshared it within days of Duterte’s March 2025 extradition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands.
The original video received additional audio and captions, including chants of “Duterte” and the song To Bayan – which was played in Tagalog along with many Filipino anti-martial law protests of the 1980s. Nearly 100,000 users viewed the manipulated video, as well as “hundreds of thousands” of shares.
Meta’s automated systems flagged the video as potentially misinformation and reduced its visibility for non-US users. However, despite it being added to the fact-checking queue, the “high volume of posts” meant it was never reviewed. Fact-checkers in the Philippines examined some such viral videos and declared them false. It came to the attention of the Oversight Board when a different Facebook user reported this video and appealed when Meta removed the content.
But now the Oversight Board says it completely agrees with Meta’s decision to leave the false protest video public. It only notes that Meta should have labeled the video “high-risk” “because it contained digitally altered, photorealistic video that posed a high risk of deceiving the public during an important public event.” It’s very unclear how something with that description could remain on Facebook.
The Oversight Board further says that Meta should have given priority to fact-checking such videos. Going forward, it recommends that Meta create a separate fact-checking queue for any content of a similar nature to fact-checked content in that market – and that fact-checkers should improve tools to more rapidly spot misleading viral media. It also wants Meta to better describe its labels for manipulated media so users can understand the criteria.
Meta notably suspended its fact-checking program in the US in January, opting for community notes instead. However, it is now considering expanding that system to other countries and has sought advice from the Oversight Board about locations.
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