ADVERTISEMENT

Facebook Recruits Elite Academics, Lawyers for Content Board

Facebook Recruits Elite Academics, Lawyers for Oversight Board

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. introduced the initial members of its oversight board, the group that will hear user appeals on content decisions and make binding judgment calls that could go against earlier decisions by the company.

So far, the board includes 20 academics, lawyers, journalists and human rights advocates. The largest social media company created the panel after criticism of Facebook’s extensive power, which is only growing: It has about 3 billion users now.

“Up until now, some of the most difficult decisions have been made by Facebook and you could say Mark Zuckerberg,” Helle Thorning-Schmidt, oversight board co-chair and former prime minister of Denmark, said Wednesday.

Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive officer, has voting control of the company, and has called the board a check on his power -- a way for Facebook to self-regulate, perhaps so governments don’t feel the need to step in. “It’s a huge step for the global community,” Schmidt said.

She’s co-chairing with Jamal Greene of Columbia Law School, who focuses on constitutional rights, Michael McConnell, a constitutional law professor at Stanford Law School, and Catalina Botero-Marino, dean of the Universidad de los Andes Faculty of Law in Bogota.

The co-chairs cautioned that they will only be able to review a few cases, some long after Facebook has made its initial decision.

“We’re going to be selecting a few flowers -- or maybe they’re weeds -- from a field of possibilities,” McConnell said. “We are not the internet police. That isn’t our job. Our job is more to consider appeals, to apply an after-the-fact deliberative second look at this, so as to advance fairness and neutrality in decision-making.” Being a part of the board is a part-time commitment -- an estimated 15 hours per month as the members continue with other roles.

The board will focus on cases from Facebook and Instagram that affect a large number of people or involve a particularly thorny area of Facebook’s policy, so that one decision has a higher impact. The decisions will be made public. The board said it won’t be addressing problems on WhatsApp, since that app is encrypted so board members can’t see what users are saying to each other.

The initial 20 members will select the next 20, while Facebook works on a system for the group to pick out cases to review. The board, which may take months to get up and running, aspires to be a kind of global Supreme Court for the internet. Botero-Marino said it’s better for internet companies to solve their own problems, so governments don’t feel compelled to limit citizens’ free expression online. “In my opinion, this unique board represents a very good model of self-regulation,” she added.

The board decisions will be binding and will not be overturned by Facebook, unless they violate the law, according to the company. The board is funded by a $130 million irrevocable trust, paid for by Facebook, but the company cannot fire any of the board members. Because the board isn’t part of Facebook, it is open to the idea of taking on work from another social media company, such as Twitter Inc., in a few years.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.