#Facebook oversight how to
#Facebook oversight free

There is therefore every reason to be skeptical. It will also help detract attention from Facebook for difficult content moderation decisions. Beyond its limited remit, the FOB is inevitably a means for Facebook to acquire the legitimacy it direly needs and to show lawmakers that self-regulation à la Facebook can work. Equally, the FOB is designed specifically only to address content moderation issues on Facebook and its other platform Instagram.

#Facebook oversight free

Broader issues around the impact of social media on free expression, such as Facebook’s business model, content promotion or downranking, and at least for now, political advertising, are out of bounds. For a start, its mandate and powers are inherently limited. However, ARTICLE 19 urges caution in assuming that the Board can fix all of the multitude of human rights issues presented by Facebook. The FOB is therefore an experiment worth watching. By putting difficult content moderation decisions to an independent group of experts, it can be hoped that we will see better outcomes for freedom of expression. The FOB is an improvement on current practice whereby social media companies are left to decide by themselves what people get to see online, enforcing often vague content rules with little transparency. With their reputation at stake, one can hope that the Board will work to hold Facebook to account, and that freedom of expression will be better protected on the platform. Many of the newly-appointed members have significantly contributed to the protection of freedom of expression and other fundamental rights globally. It is an important step in the development by Facebook of an external mechanism to oversee its content moderation practices. The board clearly recognized that publicizing Facebook’s refusals to cooperate or provide information is the best and possibly only way to put pressure on the company to behave more responsibly in the future.On 6 May, the Facebook Oversight Board (FOB) announced the names of its first cohort of 20 members, a number expected to grow to 40. Stymied by its creators, the board wrote that Facebook’s refusal to disclose how it uses algorithms to shape public discourse made it difficult to give the company the benefit of the doubt on whether it acted reasonably in responding to Trump. If Facebook wants the board to be respected as an independent court, stonewalling its questions won’t help. This may be one of the most important sentences in the opinion. Facebook “declined to answer these questions,” the decision noted.

This came uncomfortably close to asking Facebook how its business model might have incentivized conspiracy theories and violence. Trump’s posts” and contributed to the Jan. represented an extraordinary abuse of the platform.” In response, the board asked Facebook how much its own algorithms and technological design had “amplified Mr.

#Facebook oversight how to

20, Facebook sent the question of “Trump’s indefinite suspension” to the board for a binding decision and policy advice on how to deal with similar issues surrounding world leaders in the future.įacebook had also told the board that Trump’s “repeated use of Facebook and other platforms to undermine confidence in the integrity of the election ….

In response to public pressure, Facebook availed itself of the new Oversight Board - an independent organization of its own creation staffed with experts in international human rights and freedom of expression to hear user appeals of Facebook’s content moderation decisions. After initially taking down two of Trump’s posts, and then his account, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced the following day that Trump was suspended “indefinitely.” Around the world, leaders from Russian dissident Alexei Navalny to German Prime Minister Angela Merkel decried the decision, alarmed at the power of the platform to unilaterally remove a democratically elected leader, demagogue though he might be. 6, this accommodation to power finally blew up in Facebook’s face.