The board rose in prominence after Facebook asked it to weigh in on its controversial decision to ban former president Donald Trump
edmontonjournal.com
Facebook's Oversight Board realizes it’s been ‘misled’ on secret exemptions for politicians
The board rose in prominence after Facebook asked it to weigh in on its controversial decision to ban former president Donald Trump
Facebook’s independent Oversight Board forcefully reiterated demands for more transparency from Facebook when it comes to how the company treats high-profile users and politicians that break the company’s rules, according to a blog post.
In the post, the body that Facebook itself created to oversee its content decisions commended Wall Street Journal journalists who recently reported high-profile users getting exemptions from its rules.
“These disclosures have drawn renewed attention to the seemingly inconsistent way that the company makes decisions, and why greater transparency and independent oversight of Facebook matter so much for users,” the board said.
The board is asking for further clarity on information previously shared by Facebook on the practices, and said it expects to receive a briefing from the company in the coming days. The board is also looking at further recommendations for Facebook policies, it said.
The Journal published an investigation that included details on how a large number of high-profile users received white glove treatment from Facebook executives, as well as how internal research had shown that using Instagram was damaging to the self-esteem of teenage girls.
The blog post, as well as the board’s previous decisions, demonstrates that the board is intent on using its public spotlight to ensure that Facebook is forthcoming when it comes to its requests. The Journal report asserted that Facebook had previously “misled” the board in its description of its program for high-profile users.
The public call-out of Facebook comes at a critical moment for the Oversight Board, as it is still developing its reputation and authorities. The board, which has been in operation for less than a year, rose in prominence after Facebook asked it to weigh in on its controversial decision to ban former president Donald Trump from its platform in the aftermath of the Capitol attacks.
The entity is largely an experiment in content moderation, and it remains an open question how much power the board will hold over one of the world’s most valuable and scandal-plagued companies, and how much it can force it to change.
In recent months, there’s been a greater push from the board to ensure that Facebook is following through on its commitments to implement recommendations that the board puts forth. The board recently set up a team to track Facebook’s actions and plans to publicly report on how effective the company is.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Facebook public policy vice president Steve Satterfield said the company was “looking into” how to provide more transparency. However, he declined to commit to publicizing the internal research that the Journal reported on, or to send a Facebook executive to a hearing related to the reporting later this month.
The Oversight Board, which is funded by Facebook and composed of independent experts, had previously asked Facebook for more information on its exemptions for politicians, saying that it needed to “address widespread confusion about how decisions relating to influential users are made.”
The request was in the context of a decision the board issued in May on the fate of Trump’s Facebook account.
The Oversight Board said Facebook made the right call in suspending Trump but chastised the company for having opaque rules about high-profile accounts and for creating an indefinite suspension on the fly.
For instance, the company says it has a newsworthiness exemption for high-profile accounts, which allows some of the content from these accounts to be exempt from rules prohibiting hate speech, bullying and other ills. But over the years, Facebook has given conflicting and incomplete answers as to how many times it has applied the exemption, as well as which high-profile accounts or types of content fall under the policy.
In its responses to the Oversight Board, Facebook noted that it has both a newsworthiness exemption as well as a special system, called “cross check,” that rerouted potential content violations by high-profile users to a special team for a second review. But the company also said that it only made such exemptions to its rules for high-profile and political accounts a “small number” of times.
Last week, the Journal reported that the cross check program had been applied to millions of decisions and that some high-profile users had been “white-listed” or made completely exempt from Facebook’s rules.
The Journal’s reporting caused “renewed attention to the seemingly inconsistent way that the company makes decisions,” the board wrote, adding that it was looking into whether Facebook has “been fully forthcoming in its responses in relation to cross-check, including the practice of whitelisting.”
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