By: Techcrunch Olanola
Jan 29, 2019
Facebook’s internal “Supreme Court” can’t set precedents, can’t make decisions about Facebook Dating or Marketplace, and can’t oversee WhatsApp, Oculus, or any messaging feature, according to the bylaws Facebook proposed today for its Oversight Board.
It’s designed to provide an independent appeals process for content moderation rulings. But it will only be able to challenge content taken down, not left up, until at least later this year so it likely won’t be able to remove misinformation in political ads allowed by Facebook’s controversial policy before the 2020 election.
Oh, and this Board can’t change its own bylaws without Facebook’s approval.
The result is an Oversight Board does not have deep or broad power to impact Facebook’s on-going policies — only to clean up a specific instance of a botched decision. It will allow Facebook to point to an external decision maker when it gets in hot water for potential censorship, differing responsibility.