Weeks into the war in Ukraine, Facebook's parent company Meta is poised to tap its oversight board for guidance about a policy shift allowing users in Ukraine to post some calls for violence against Russian invaders.

It would mark the first time the panel has formally weighed in on the tech giant's flurry of actions in response to the war, and it could shape its rules on violent rhetoric moving forward.

But the seemingly narrow scope and late timing of the board's entrance highlights the limits of its powers, particularly involving high-stakes decisions happening in rapidly unfolding global conflicts.

Since Russia launched its invasion, the tech giant has shut down access to Russian state-media outlets in Europe and limited the reach of their posts, blocked digital advertising and monetization tools in Russia, and most recently temporarily exempted users in Ukraine in some cases from rules against calling for violence, as The Washington Post's Elizabeth Dwoskin reported.

Its latest policy shift marked an unusual exception to Facebook's long-standing hate speech policies prohibiting calling for violence against a targeted group. The company has also been on the hook to make thorny calls about graphic war content.

But so far, its oversight board has been relatively quiet on the conflict, not yet accepting any new cases related to the war and only now gearing up to weigh in on a portion of Meta's policies.

In a recent internal post reviewed by The Post's Naomi Nix, Meta's vice president of global affairs Nick Clegg said the company would be referring the guidance it issued to moderators, calling for some posts promoting violence against Russian invaders to be permitted, to the oversight board. Clegg said the move would ensure the matter is "properly examined and scrutinised for how it fits with the underlying principles of our policies."

Dex Hunter-Torricke, the oversight board's head of communications, told The Post that the panel is expecting to receive a request from Meta "to examine how they're enforcing some of their content policies in the context of the war," likely in the form of a policy advisory.

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Hunter-Torricke said he could not speak to the full scope of the referral until it is made, but he said he expects it to be "quite focused" since the violent rhetoric policy "is a very significant issue all on its own." Meta declined to comment on its referral plans.

The oversight board has effectively been unable to weigh in on any of the tech giant's massive policy shifts in recent weeks, and now that it will, it's on "a very small slice of what Facebook's doing," said Evelyn Douek, a lecturer at Harvard Law School.

"It's taking all sorts of other steps, many of which are outside the ambit of what the board can review," Douek said.

She added, "The board really is at the mercy of Facebook in terms of how much information it's going to be given, what kind of questions it's going to be allowed to review . . . and that's a severe limitation in a situation like this," she said.

Caitlin Vogus, deputy director at the Centre for Democrat and Technology's Free Expression Project, said the board could shed light on how Meta is making decisions about content related to the war - particularly useful given its often opaque process.

"It helps people see and understand how both the oversight board and Meta are thinking about this issue and why they're making the decisions they're making," she said.

But crafting those advisories and rulings take time, meaning many weeks if not months may go by before the board formally weighs in on anything related to the war. That could limit the impact of any input it gives Facebook's parent company.

"The timeliness issue is absolutely a limitation for the board. . . . It can take a long time for it to review these cases, and Facebook here is having to make decisions really quickly, often minute by minute during the conflict," Vogus said.

Douek said she doesn't think the board should necessarily function as a rapid-response advisory council for Meta and its platforms. "But there certainly should be capacity for the board to respond maybe more quickly than three months from now," she added.