In addition, Facebook users can (and do, millions of times every month) "flag" content that they believe violates the ToS this user-flagged content goes into a queue that is reviewed by a Facebook content moderator, who decides whether or not the content violates the ToS and should be removed from the system. Thousands of Facebook "content moderators" patrol the system, proactively seeking out posted content that violates the ToS. As you would expect, given the astonishing volume of content involved – tens of billions of messages are posted every day at Facebook and Instagram- ex ante enforcement is, and must be, entirely automated and "algorithmic."įacebook also enforces these rules ex post, removing (or placing warnings on) posts after they have been disseminated across the platform. But we don't have to follow suit when it is misleading to do so.įacebook relies increasingly heavily on ex ante enforcement of these rules – removing (or placing warnings on) material deemed to be in violation of the ToS before that material is transmitted and displayed across the platform.
#Facebook oversight board free
It is also free to call those speech-rules anything it chooses to call them.
Facebook's speech rules do not, however, derive from the Facebook community they are, like ordinary website Terms of Service with which all Internet users are familiar, imposed on the Facebook community unilaterally by the site operator.įacebook, as a private entity, has every right to impose on users whatever speech rules, derived from whatever source, it chooses (subject, of course, to the usual and generally-applicable rules and regulations regarding corporate conduct). "Community Standards" connotes, in the law and in ordinary speech, that the rules derive in some fashion from the community (however that community might be defined). I prefer to call it Facebook's "Terms of Service" (ToS). * Facebook calls these rules its "Community Standards." I dislike the term. Facebook's speech rules* identify a number of categories of speech that are not permitted on the platform- e.g., Incitement of Violence, Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity, Bullying and Harassment, Hate Speech, Terrorist Propaganda, Violent and Graphic Content, Cruel and Insensitive Speech – along with definitions of, and some explanatory commentary about, each category. To begin with, here is a simplified outline of Facebook's existing content management system. And second, that even were it not a sham – even if the Board were actually empowered to provide real oversight and direction to that system – that doesn't strike me as any sort of improvement in the current state of affairs there are many fundamental policy choices embedded in that system which affect the fortunes of a large proportion of the individuals, corporations, and governments on the planet, and I fail to see why a hand-picked Council of the Wise is the proper repository of the power to make those choices. The Board is not what it purports to be it cannot and will not exercise anything that can remotely be described as "oversight" over Facebook's content management system. This experiment raises some complicated issues about governance and decision-making, and I will try to be as concise as I can. The Board has also agreed, at Facebook's request, to decide whether ex-President Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts were improperly terminated in the aftermath of the January 6 riot at the Capitol. In December of last year, the Board revealed the details of the first six cases it would be deciding, and it has recently issued its decisions in those cases. That body-now called the "Facebook Oversight Board"-recently began operation. Later that year, he announced that Facebook would create an "Independent Governance and Oversight" committee by the close of 2019 "to advise on content policy and listen to user appeals on content decisions." "could imagine some sort of structure, almost like a Supreme Court, that is made up of independent folks who don't work for Facebook, who ultimately make the final judgment call on what should be acceptable speech in a community that reflects the social norms and values of people all around the world."
In April 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, facing intense public pressure to do something about the proliferation of false or misleading information appearing on the platform, said that he
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