In September, Facebook showed NBC News an early version of the case management tool it built for the board, comprising a dashboard of appeals submitted by users from which board members can assign and select cases for review. “In one of the early meetings somebody said, ‘Why are there eight people on this call when we’re only six of us here?’ and the Facebook people then vanished,” Rusbridger said. This made some board members uncomfortable, so they excluded the Facebook employees from subsequent sessions. The board members were announced in May.ĭuring some of the early sessions, Facebook employees joined the board’s Zoom calls to observe the discussions. However, the board has its own staff, independent from Facebook, who oversee the allocation of funds and the administration of the appeal process. The social networking giant then provided $130 million to establish an independent board trust and helped choose board members. “It’s a step toward recognition that these transnational companies control our public rights in a way that governments don’t and that we need to create a participatory and democratic mechanism to inform those companies that those rights are protected.” Early Foundationsįacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg first floated the idea of an oversight board in April 2018. John's University School of Law, who has published research on the Oversight Board. “The Oversight Board has the potential to revolutionize how we think about the relationship between private corporations and our public rights,” said Kate Klonick, an assistant professor at the St. Still some followers of Facebook expressed optimism that such a board was even created. “I think it’s a bit unfair to wade in with huge amounts of criticism when we haven’t said anything yet.” “Everyone is very conscious that our reputations are on the line,” said board member Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of The Guardian, in a Zoom interview in September. Now, the board and its members are going to great lengths to assert their independence and prove that they aren’t shilling for Facebook. The board’s launch also follows months of criticism for being too slow to launch, too limited in scope and too cozy with Facebook. While it will not decide any cases before the election, the Oversight Board will prioritize cases that pose a significant risk to human rights or free expression, for example activists who believe they have been censored or posts that could be construed as hate speech, members of the board explained in a press call on Thursday. These accusations of censorship come as Facebook tries to position itself as a defender of free speech and stave off efforts by lawmakers to regulate content on the platform. While some criticize the platform for not removing enough content, three quarters of Americans believe social media sites like Facebook intentionally censor political viewpoints they find objectionable, according to a September study from Pew. presidential election, including how it handles disinformation, foreign interference and hate speech. Facebook has faced intense scrutiny about the way it enforces its own content rules in the run-up to the 2020 U.S. But it aims to “offer a critical independent check on Facebook’s approach to moderating some of the most significant content issues.”īy announcing the board on Thursday, Facebook has launched an unprecedented model of governance that no other social media outlet has created. “The Oversight Board wasn’t created to be a quick fix or an all-encompassing solution,” said Helle Thorning-Schmidt, co-chair of the board and former prime minister of Denmark.
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