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Thursday, May 07, 2020

Facebook names first content oversight board members

Facebook on Wednesday announced the first members of its independent oversight board, which will have the power to decide what content should be removed from the company's platforms.

The company named four co-chairs and 16 other members. The total strength of the board will eventually be expanded to 40, the company said in a statement.

The co-chairs are former Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Stanford Law School Professor and former U.S. Circuit Judge Michael McConnell, Columbia Law School Professor Jamal Greene, and former Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur Catalina Botero Marino.

The other members include journalists, digital rights activists, judges, and former government officials and advisers from around the globe.

The panel will initially only review content in cases where users have exhausted Facebook’s normal appeals process and still feel content has been wrongfully removed. Later, it will also look at appeals from users who want Facebook to remove content.

Content will include posts, videos, photos and comments on Facebook or Instagram and could involve violence, hate speech, and nudity. The board's domain will later expand to include ads, profiles, events, groups, and pages. Facebook did not say when the board's remit would be expanded.

The panel will also review content directly referred to it by Facebook, which will adjust its policies based on its decisions.

The board’s decisions must be made and implemented within 90 days, although Facebook can ask for an additional 30-day review for exceptional cases. It will not deal with direct messages on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Oculus virtual reality products.

Facebook said the board will initially take up “dozens” of cases out of the thousands that will eventually reach it. In 2019, over 10 million pieces of removed content were appealed.

Positive Facebook will become more neutral lens
Michael McConnell, said he hoped that the board would bring a "higher degree of political neutrality" to the platform. One of its main goals would be that Facebook "not decide elections," he said. But he added that the board would not be "the internet police."

Negative Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg decides lens
Dr. Bernie Hogan, from the Oxford Internet Institute, said, "Fundamentally, Facebook is a corporation. Its veneer of governance is admirable and thorough, but the buck does not stop with a constitution, citizenship or human rights. It stops with Mark Zuckerberg and his vision for the future."

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

All extreme left wing liberals. Time to delete Facebook.

Anonymous said...

Facebook aka NAZI GERMANY Treason.

Anonymous said...

Why people are obsessed with this Social Media venue as forum for free speech is beyond me. It's a business that can manage and edit it's inventory of content how ever they see fit. Your not going to get a Vegan meal at a Steak house. Go some where else if does no suite your desires. Ever write a letter to the editor at the News Paper and not get published. Businesses should be able to control their product and corporate agenda brand and be free to do so. People like to think it's some sort of old fashioned party line on the telephone or something. When the internet went public it had no altruistic pretensions it was well planned out to be a veiled commercial Market Place to collect data and demographics options and data on the population. Your are being surveilled with every key stroke from you IP addy and perhaps even more.

Anonymous said...

Time for a civil war.

Anonymous said...

6:36 PM - Should have never even started.

High Desert Dawg said...

Never bought into facebook. I cant understand why everybody NEEDS so much reassurance and pats on the back from a bunch of STRANGERS! Oh, but I have 500 friends.....Uhhhh, NO, you have 4 friends, and 496 STRANGERS you call friends.....whatever.....Just another TOOL they use to 1) Keep track of us & 2) Keep us from really forming true friendships....oh well, whatever

Anonymous said...

Censoring on Steroids...

Anonymous said...

So, a bunch of left-wingers are going to judge whether or not to remove conservative view points.
This is going to go over like a fart in church.

Anonymous said...

Why I left 3 years ago...

Anonymous said...

I deleted my account a while back. I realized it is just a tracking device. People join and tell all their information on there.

Anonymous said...

Check out summit.news. One of the board members is pro Muslim brotherhood.

Anonymous said...

Northwest Woodsman: Excellent comment 7:14. I totally agree. Yahoo, Google, Facebook, and YouTube all need to be driven out of business by effective and highly competitive and objective companies. As it is now, they readily manipulate the content in order to influence and indoctrinate us in their liberal, Marxist world view. I find YouTube very informative and helpful when I use it for guidance and direction in making repairs to various projects around the ranch and I stay away from political videos. Amazon.com is highly efficient and my go to spot when I need a product that I do not wish to spend time looking for at multiple stores. Example: I needed a gasket for the spout on a NATO style gasoline can and sure enough, Amazon had multiple choices available. I would never have found something like that in normal brick and mortar stores.
That being said, however, I could do without any of these activities and influences and return to situations like trying to find a surfboard rack foe my car in 1969 era Salisbury. Never did find one back in those ancient times.