By: The Guardian
March 17, 2021
In October, Facebook unveiled its long-awaited “oversight board” – a special, semi-independent body, staffed mainly by experts on free speech and constitutional law, with the authority to make decisions about controversial content posted on Facebook’s platform.
Sometimes described as Facebook’s “supreme court”, the oversight board has been met, in the legal and academic worlds, mostly with wonder, excitement and praise. Giving predominantly legal scholars input on the content moderation of the world’s largest social media platform seems like a positive step for social media governance.
But behind the gloss, Facebook’s experiment is intended to foster anything but genuine accountability. It is a clever obfuscation offering Facebook cover to engage in socially irresponsible profit-seeking that would be publicly reviled were it more transparent.