Technology Facebook’s Oversight Board takes its first six cases

Facebook’s Oversight Board, an independent body that reviews Facebook moderation decisions, has accepted its first cases. The six appeals involve content removed under Facebook’s hate speech rules, nudity ban, and misinformation policies. They’re now open for seven days of public comment, after which the board will determine whether the posts should have been removed.

© Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Most of the cases involve users outside the US posting non-English content — a known weak point for Facebook moderation — and at least two hinge on the nuance of someone publishing hate content to implicitly criticize it. One user posted screenshots of offensive tweets from former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, for instance, allegedly to raise awareness of “horrible words.” Another post involved a user who shared an alleged Joseph Goebbels quote, but who appealed by saying they were comparing Goebbels’s words to a “fascist model” in US politics.

Facebook pulled down your post. Here's how to challenge that decision

A new board will review some of Facebook's and Instagram's toughest content moderation decisions.The social networks remove millions of posts, photos and videos every quarter for violating their rules against nudity, hate speech and other types of offensive content. If you're affected, you can ask Facebook and Instagram to review the decision, but that doesn't guarantee a reversal.

When the Oversight Board reviews and decides on content, it will do so in light of Facebook ’ s content policies and the values that underpin those policies. In some cases , the board may want additional context to help them with their deliberations. To receive such cultural, technical or contextual

The Oversight Board represents a new model of content moderation for Facebook and Instagram and today we are proud to announce our initial members. The Board will take final and binding decisions on whether specific content should be allowed or removed from Facebook and InstagramThe Board will

Each case will be referred to a five-member panel that includes one person from the same region as the original content. These panels will make their decisions — and Facebook will act on them — within 90 days. The oversight board, whose first members were announced in May, includes digital rights activists and former European Court of Human Rights judge András Sajó. Their decisions will be informed by public comments.

Five of the incidents were submitted by users, who have appealed over 20,000 decisions since the option opened in October. The last was referred by Facebook itself and deals with coronavirus-related misinformation — one of the platform’s touchiest subjects. Moderators removed a video that criticized French health officials for not authorizing unproven COVID-19 treatment hydroxychloroquine, which the video inaccurately referred to as a “cure.” The company later submitted it as “an example of the challenges faced when addressing the risk of offline harm that can be caused by misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Facebook touts free speech. In Vietnam, it's aiding in censorship

To protect its business in an important market, Facebook increasingly removes content that Vietnam's authoritarian government doesn't like.In a country with no independent media, Facebook provides the only platform where Vietnamese can read about contentious topics such as Dong Tam, a village outside Hanoi where residents were fighting authorities’ plans to seize farmland to build a factory.

When the Oversight Board goes fully operational later this year, we will make binding and independent decisions on the most challenging content issues on 3 June 2020 – This update shares our progress in setting up the Oversight Board and the pathway towards the board hearing its first case over the

The independent board , which some have dubbed Facebook ' s "Supreme Court," will be able to overturn decisions by the company and Chief Executive Mark The oversight board will focus on a small slice of challenging content issues including hate speech and harassment and people's safety.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has compared the Oversight Board to a Supreme Court for Facebook. It’s supposed to offer a fair appeals process for users who get their content removed — something that often feels missing on social networks, especially as they take stricter steps to remove false information or offensive speech. At the same time, it eases the pressure on Facebook to make moderation calls. Cases like the pandemic video decision, for instance, will set an independently decided precedent for when Facebook removes similar content in the future.

The Oversight Board — similar to the US Supreme Court — is largely supposed to interpret policies, not make new ones. Facebook has said it may also turn to the board for policy recommendations in the future, however.

Many of Facebook’s problems involve the speed and scale of content moderation, not the exact nuances of interpreting its policies. The Oversight Board obviously can’t hear all the appeals cases, and we don’t know exactly how rank-and-file moderators will apply its rulings to everyday decisions. But it’s the start of a long-awaited experiment in managing Facebook (a little) more like a government.