Oversight Board Speaks — Will Meta Listen?
New Cases Highlight Limitations of Facebook’s Oversight Board, Which is Barred from Addressing Meta’s Whitewashed Human Rights Report
16 September 2022 — The Real Facebook Oversight Board issued the following statement about the new docket of Facebook Oversight Board cases -
The Facebook Oversight Board is speaking out about automated content moderation, concerned that Meta’s approach to automated moderation is insufficient. That’s good right? Like all the board’s decisions, though, the rulings only matter if Meta listens. And so far, the record is not good.
To date, Meta has fully implemented less than a third of the Oversight Board’s recommendations. The company has lied to its own oversight board, and excluded it from deliberation at key moments — like the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Meta’s content moderation is deeply broken, but does this “oversight” matter?
Furthermore, the Oversight Board will be taking up cases about violent and extremist content in India and Africa. This is just tinkering around the margins, though: the Oversight Board was silent about Meta’s refusal to release the full India Human Rights Assessment, and silent when Meta whitewashed its human rights record in its recent first human rights report.
This is silence by design. The Oversight Board, chosen by Meta, paid for by Meta and given its scope by Meta has no purview to weigh in on issues like the India Human Rights Impact Assessment, instead cherry-picking one-off cases.
We need real, external independent oversight. And we challenge Oversight Board members — in spite of your 100k+ yearly payouts — to speak out bravely about the issues the Oversight Board can’t address, like whitewashing of human rights globally and burying its recent rights assessments.
Real Facebook Oversight Board members are available for interviews. Statements do not reflect the individual positions of all Real Facebook Oversight Board Members. Contact us at media@the-citizens.com.
