Facebook Marks Its Own Homework

Statement for attribution from the Real Facebook Oversight Board on today’s release by Facebook of their first Quarterly Update on the Oversight Board:

Facebook claims to be fully or in part implementing 14 of the Facebook Oversight Board’s 18 recommendations. How would we know? Are we just supposed to take their word for it? This is the company that just this week was found to have lost a critical moderation policy for over three years, and has been shown by two New York Times reporters to be one of the most dishonest corporate actors in global history.

There is no independent verification of what Facebook claims, nor any requirement of them to transparently confirm what they’re saying. Facebook is marking its own homework — we have no way of trusting their “quarterly report,” and their Oversight Board seems to have no problem allowing Facebook to claim its recommendations are being implemented without proof, evidence or documentation.

Facebook, allegedly independent from its Oversight Board, is spinning us all again.

Sadly, this comes the same week the Biden Administration moved to clamp down on social media disinformation about the COVID vaccine — and the same week that racists used Facebook and Instagram to attack black footballers in England. Facebook can produce only PR, never change, and people are dying because of it.

Make no mistake: this is the quarter that Facebook’s Oversight Board punted on the Trump Ban, booting their biggest case ever down the road in a muddled ruling with no spine. That’s the story of the quarter.

Facebook needs real, independent oversight with muscle.