The Facebook Oversight Board Is Making the Most of Its Limited Power

Whether you call it a Facebook PR scheme or the Supreme Court for social media, the Facebook Oversight Board is moving beyond its initial remit. Now things get interesting.

Alex Kantrowitz
OneZero

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The hot takes have poured in following the Facebook Oversight Board’s decision on Donald Trump. On Wednesday, the “independent” board — made up of third parties selected by Facebook — announced it would uphold Facebook’s ban of the former president while asking Facebook to come up with something less arbitrary than an “indefinite” suspension. People called the board a threat to democracy, a Facebook branding campaign, an insufficient check on Facebook’s power, and something more powerful than the United Nations.

In reality, the board is a feeble institution funded and designed by Facebook — not a boogeyman upon which we should project all our fears — but it’s starting to assert itself in some very interesting ways. Facebook originally tasked the board with reviewing content moderation decisions — the least consequential of all choices Facebook makes — but it’s now moving into content policy and pressing Facebook on product design choices, which matter much more.

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