Meta Platforms has agreed to extend its financial commitment to its independent Oversight Board, securing the watchdog's operations through 2028. The funding extension arrives at a turbulent time for social media companies, which are currently facing immense pressure to protect free speech while simultaneously combating a massive wave of AI-generated misinformation.

Paolo Carozza, co-chair of the Oversight Board, confirmed that the new capital will be directly injected into the body's independent trust. He noted that Meta continues to regularly refer its most complex, high-stakes content moderation dilemmas to the panel and remains compliant in responding to its policy recommendations, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.

While the board did not disclose the exact dollar amount of this latest cash injection, Meta previously committed a baseline of at least $30 million annually through a three-year deal signed in 2024.

The Oversight Board, which operates as a quasi-judicial body of international experts, holds the unique power to issue binding decisions and policy recommendations regarding what content is allowed across Meta’s major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

The fresh funding comes just over a year after an intense, public standoff between the social media giant and its internal watchdog. In April 2025, the Oversight Board issued a blistering rebuke against Meta for "hastily" dismantling its traditional U.S. fact-checking operations and abruptly easing restrictions on highly contentious political topics, including immigration and gender identity.

Those controversial policy rollbacks were pushed through in January 2025 by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who publicly argued that the company's previous, highly restrictive moderation efforts had ultimately resulted in "too much censorship."

Instead of traditional moderation, Zuckerberg shifted the company toward a decentralized, crowdsourced "community notes" moderation system. The pivot was widely interpreted by industry analysts as a strategic effort to defuse years of aggressive censorship allegations from conservative lawmakers and directly align the Silicon Valley giant with the regulatory expectations of the incoming Trump administration.

News.Az 

By Aysel Mammadzada