The Oversight Board will be made up of a minimum of 11 members, and will have final say in decisions regarding accounts and content, possibly shielding management from future controversial decisions
The social media platform Facebook yesterday introduced a new Oversight Board — a sort of Supreme Court, which the company says “will make Facebook “more accountable and improve our decision-making.” It also hopes the new board will slow calls for greater oversight and regulations from governments worldwide.
“Today, we’re announcing more details on the structure of the Oversight Board and its relationship to Facebook in the form of a charter,” wrote Brent Harris, Director of Governance and Global Affairs. “This central governing document defines the board’s mandate and describes its relationship to Facebook. It establishes its membership, governance and decision-making authority, and it sets out parameters for things like the size, scope and power of the board. In the coming months this charter will be available in multiple languages on a new board website.”
The new oversight board will be designed like a court, with judges that can make final decisions regarding content decision. Like a court system, the board is designed to hear cases after Facebook has made a first decision regarding accounts and content, then reviewed that decision themselves. At the end of the process, a decision can then be reviewed by the new oversight board.
Click to enlarge
But few will be fooled as the real mission of the new board: to shield Facebook from its own decisions. The hope is certainly that by saying these decisions are independent of Facebook’s own management team, it is hoped the pressure building for greater regulations of the social media giant ill be lessened.
“The board will be an advocate for our community — supporting people’s right to free expression, and making sure we fulfill our responsibility to keep people safe. As an independent organization, we hope it gives people confidence that their views will be heard, and that Facebook doesn’t have the ultimate power over their expression,” Zuckerberg said.
“This new structure was informed by a range of factors, but we were particularly driven by the rise in white supremacist violence and the fact that terrorists increasingly may not be clearly tied to specific terrorist organizations before an attack occurs, as was seen in Sri Lanka and New Zealand.”
Who will be on this new oversight board will be interesting. The board will have a minimum of 11 members, and up to 40 eventually — plenty of space to place members to please political interests.
Like the US court system under Donald Trump, it is likely that political players will want their guys on the board to influence decision, stacking the board with friendly faces sure to give preference to strong political players.
But if Facebook really thinks this will lessen the pressure on it from governments, especially in Europe, they are being naive. Ultimately, the man in the crosshairs is Mark Zuckerberg, and the only way he will escape is by him stepping down, something that is probably unthinkable in his mind.