The board looks at whether Facebook’s decisions are accountable to international human rights norms as well as the company’s own policies. “The company owes us all a post mortem on the way Facebook is used and operated - did it amplify what Trump was saying and contribute to the insurrection.”Īnother worry: How Facebook's actions resonate overseas. “Not everybody sees what any individual posts, so the algorithms decide who sees it, how they see it, when they see it and Facebook presumably has all kinds of information about the engagement levels,” said Robert Weissman, the group’s president. The watchdog group Public Citizen said it was troubling that Facebook declined, for instance, to say how its news feed affected the visibility of Trump’s posts. One major source of concern among Facebook critics: The oversight board reported that the company refused to answer detailed questions about how its technical features and advertising-based business model might also amplify extremism. “It is the first body of its kind in the world: an expert-led independent organization with the power to impose binding decisions on a private social media company.” “We established the independent Oversight Board to apply accountability and scrutiny of our actions,” the company said in a statement. The board, Robinson said, is “is a ruse to stave off regulatory action."įacebook said it has publicly made clear that the oversight board is not a replacement for regulation. “They want to keep us in conversation about this piece of content or that piece of content, that this is about freedom of speech rather than about algorithms amplifying certain types of content, which has nothing to do with freedom of speech."
“It's much easier to talk about Donald Trump" than about Facebook's business, said Color Of Change President Rashad Robinson, a longtime critic of Facebook. Many, in fact, see its narrow focus on one-off content issues as a distraction from deeper problems such as Facebook's massive power, its shadowy algorithms that can amplify hate and misinformation, and more serious and complicated questions about government regulation. Calling Facebook’s indefinite ban of Trump a “vague, standardless penalty,” the board accused Facebook - its corporate sponsor - of seeking to ”avoid its responsibilities” by asking its quasi-independent oversight group to resolve the issue.īut critics aren't convinced that the board's decision represents a triumph of independence or accountability. Facebook’s oversight board, which on Wednesday upheld the company’s ban of former President Donald Trump, also had some harsh words for the company.
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