Philippines’ Maria Ressa among critics planning Facebook ‘oversight board’

The group says Facebook is taking too long to set up its oversight panel, which they argue is too limited in its scope and autonomy

Ressa, the CEO of news site Rappler, said in August that ‘tech platforms have created a system where lies laced with anger and hate spread faster than facts’

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Maria Ressa is CEO of Philippine news website Rappler. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 9:15am, 26 Sep 2020Updated: 7:26pm, 26 Sep 2020

A group of prominent Facebook critics, including one of the social network’s early investors and a journalist facing jail time in the Philippines, are launching their version of an “oversight board” to rival the company’s own.

The group says Facebook is taking too long to set up its oversight panel, which they argue is too limited in its scope and autonomy.

The critics – who include Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, early investor Roger McNamee, and author of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff – are warning that Facebook is already being used to undermine the integrity of the US presidential election and are calling for “proper independent scrutiny” of the firm.

The group, however, has no authority over Facebook and it is not an actual “board”. Rather, it says it was started to sound the alarm about Facebook’s role in the coming election.

The announcement on Friday came a day after Facebook said its own, quasi-independent oversight board, which has faced numerous delays since the company announced its creation in 2018, would launch in October.

Facebook’s own panel is intended to rule on thorny content issues, such as when Facebook or Instagram posts constitute hate speech.