How will Facebook play a role in the US presidential elections this time around?
- 82newsbulletin
- Sep 29, 2020
- 2 min read
Written by Karrie Lam
With the 2020 US election looming closer, Facebook is to launch an oversight board in mid-to-late October to regulate the content on its platform. The Oversight Board, conceptualized in 2018 by Mark Zuckerberg, is a response to Facebook’s past failures to curtail divisive and hateful content, in addition to Russia’s interference with the 2016 US presidential election through its platform.
Acting as a “social media Supreme Court”, the oversight board can make independent, binding decisions that may overrule Facebook’s content removal decision. Users are free to appeal a case to the Oversight Board should they find their posts unfairly taken down by Facebook. All board members are to be familiarised with Facebook’s community standards and international human rights laws and receive training on the case management tool used to receive and consider appeals. The initial goal is to hear around 100 cases per year, according to Jamal Greene, a co-chair of the Oversight Board. The cases are chosen based on the following criteria: 1. affects large numbers of users 2. look like they may have a major effect on public discourse, and 3. raise significant policy questions across the platform
Despite the board launching ahead of the election, a 90-day window is allowed for decisions to be passed on a case and for Facebook to act on the decision. Concerns have arisen over the areas the Oversight Board does not oversee, particularly the content that remains left on the platform (rather than the ones taken down) as only Facebook itself is allowed to take action against existing content. Julie Owono, one of the 20 initial Board members, said that technical and privacy challenges have hindered the system for Facebook users to appeal “leave up” decisions, but it would be available “as soon as possible”. It is also still possible for manipulation of the Facebook algorithm which largely dictates the content being amplified on the platform.
Aside from the Oversight Board, Facebook has also planned to apply contextual labels to posts by candidates or campaigns that attempt to declare victory before official election results become available and posts that seek to delegitimize the results.
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