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Facebook has released new documents detailing the company's plans to set up a content monitoring committee, which would be a sort of Supreme Court for the platform. During a phone interview with reporters on Tuesday, Facebook said it hoped the board would be staffed with a full staff by the end of the year. year and gave more details on its functioning and governance.
Last November, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a blog post outlining his plan to virtually create a supreme court for Facebook. Once full membership, the body will be responsible for deciding the remedies of users whose content has been removed from Facebook platforms. It will also decide on the cases submitted to it by the company itself.
"The council will be an advocate for our community, supporting people's right to freedom of expression and ensuring that we fulfill our responsibility to protect people," Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post. "As an independent organization, we hope that people will have the assurance that their opinions will be heard and that Facebook will not have the ultimate power over their expression."
Facebook is committed to having the oversight body operational by November of next year. Today, the company explained how its members would be chosen and how they would influence the moderation of its platforms.
According to the Facebook charter published on Tuesday, the supervisory board will have at least 11 members and "will probably have 40 members" when it is fully staffed. Each member of the Board of Directors will serve no more than nine years, divided into three-year terms. The positions will be part-time, although the board will be staffed by full-time staff to review submissions and conduct research. Member names and moderation decisions will also be available in an online public database.
However, the board can also be divided into different "panels" to focus on more specific content assignments. Board members can remain anonymous if their security is a problem in a particular case.
Facebook says it hopes to equip the supervisory board with people from different backgrounds. "There will be a group of people on this board who will make different people uncomfortable," Facebook's director of governance and global affairs, Brent Harris, told reporters. "We believe that by building the council, by constituting and truly representing diversity in the composition of this institution, this will be a real characteristic."
The charter specifies a series of requirements for members of the supervisory board, similar to those of a board of directors. "Members should not have real or perceived conflicts of interest that could compromise their independent judgment and decision-making," reads the document. They must also have demonstrated "knowledge of issues related to digital content and governance, including freedom of expression, civic discourse, security, privacy and technology".
Once the forum is in place, the content cases will be submitted by both Facebook users and the company itself, with the board having the final say on which cases to hear. "In its selection, the board of directors will endeavor to take into account the cases most likely to guide decisions and future policies," the charter states.
To submit a complaint, a user must first have exhausted all calls in the moderation system already set up by Facebook. The charter provides that users submit written statements to present their specific moderation cases. Other decisions, such as the possibility for users to testify in person, still need to be considered by future counsel.
"The board's decision will be enforceable even if myself or someone from Facebook does not share that opinion," Mark Zuckerberg told a blog on Tuesday. "The board will use our values to inform our decisions and explain our reasoning openly and in a manner that protects the privacy of individuals."
Although the board's decisions are made public, the details of the public disclosure are still unclear. Facebook said it has not yet determined how to balance the privacy of users whose content complaints are heard by the board and the transparency of its decisions.
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