Two weeks before the U.S. presidential election, the Oversight Board says it has “serious concerns” about Meta’s content moderation systems in “electoral contexts,” and that the company risks the “excessive removal of political speech” when it over-enforces its rules. The admonishment came as the board weighed in on a case involving a satirical image of Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Engadget reported.

Meta originally removed the post, shared on Facebook in August, that showed an edited version of a movie poster from Dumb and Dumber. The original 1994 movie poster shows the two main characters grabbing each other’s nipples through their shirts. In the altered version, the actor’s faces were replaced by Harris and Walz.

According to the Oversight Board, Meta cited its bullying and harassment rules, which includes a provision barring “derogatory sexualized photoshops or drawings.” The social network later restored the post after it drew attention from the Oversight Board, and the company acknowledged the satirical image didn’t break its rules because it didn’t depict sexual activity.

The Oversight Board posted the following:

In August 2024, a Facebook user posted an altered picture on the poster for the 1994 comedy film “Dumb and Dumber.” In the altered image, the faces of the actors are replaced with the U.S. presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. 

As in the original poster, the two figures are grabbing each other’s nipples through their clothing. The content was posted with a caption that included the emoji 🤷‍♂️🖕🖕. Meta initially removed the user’s post from Facebook under its Bullying and Harassment Community Standard, which prohibits “derogatory sexualized photoshop or drawings.”

After the user appealed Meta’s decision to remove their content to the Board, the Board brought this case to the company’s attention. Meta then determined its removal was incorrect, restoring the post to Facebook.

The Washington Times reported Meta’s Oversight Board rebuked the tech giant Wednesday after the company removed a satirical post depicting Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as the duo from the film “Dumb and Dumber.”

The Oversight Board, which operates independently from Meta, ruled that the company acted rashly by removing the post writing that it was obviously a political parody.

“This post is nothing more than a commonplace satirical image of prominent politicians and is instantly recognizable as such,” the board ruled.

Meta’s justification for taking down the post was that it violated the platform’s rule against derogatory sexualized photoshops. The rule is intended to target deep-fake pornography of non consenting parties. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, restored the image once it was informed that the Oversight board would investigate the incident.

In my opinion, this satirical image of Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz was created by someone who clearly didn’t like either one of them. The movie “Dumb and Dumber” was released in 1994, which indicates the age of the person who posted this on Facebook.

Meta has begun laying off employees across various departments, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs, according to people familiar with the matter. Rather than a mass, companywide layoff, these smaller cuts seem to coincide with reorganizations of specific teams, The Verge reported.

Some Meta employees have started posting that they’ve been laid off. Among them is Jan Manchun Wong, who gained notoriety for reporting on unannounced features coming to apps before joining the Threads team in 2023.

“Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy, company spokesperson Dave Arnold said in a statement shared with The Verge. “This includes moving some teams to different locations and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees.”

The Guardian reported Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has reportedly fired about 24 staff at its Los Angeles offices for using their $25 (£19) meal credits to buy items such as toothpaste, laundry detergent, and wine glasses.

The tech firm, which is worth £1.2tn and also owns the messaging platform WhatsApp, is said to have dismissed workers last week after an investigation discovered staff had been abusing the system, including sending food home when they were not in the office.

That included one unnamed worker on a $400,000 salary, who said they had used their meal credits to buy household goods and groceries such as toothpaste and tea.

The worker admitted the breach when approached as part of a human resources investigation into the practice and was later fired. “It was almost surreal that this was happening,” the person wrote, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the story.

Some employees were also found to have spent the credits on other household items, such as acne pads. Employees who had only occasionally broken the rules were reprimanded, but were able to keep their jobs, the newspaper reported.

Free food has long been one of the perks for working for large tech companies.

CNN reported Meta fired around two dozen employees from its Los Angeles office for misusing company meal credits for things like laundry detergent, wine glasses, and acne treatment pads, a source familiar with the company confirmed to CNN.

Many of the social media giant’s corporate offices feature elaborate food services to provide employees with meals as a perk. Meta’s two-year-old office near New York City’s Penn Station, for example, features a cafeteria that feels like an upscale food court, with various stalls all free for staff.

But for employees at smaller offices without food services, the company provides meal vouchers — $20 for breakfast and $25 each for lunch and dinner — so they can have food delivered to the office while on the job.

The meal vouchers are meant for employees to eat while working at the office — sometimes long hours stretching across several meals of the day, notorious in the tech world.

In my opinion, it’s great that a company as large as Meta is offering food vouchers for its workers. Clearly, Meta is not thrilled about workers using the vouchers to buy household items, and is laying people off for doing so.