Facebook recommends rules for independent oversight board which could overrule Zuckerberg
- The content appeals board, led by former human rights group director Thomas Hughes, will grow to about 40 members
- Users will initially only be able to appeal to the board when their content has been removed and not where their content was left up
Facebook recommended rules on Tuesday for how its independent oversight board will work and said a former human rights group director will lead the board’s administrative staff.
The content appeals board, which will grow to about 40 members and will be able to overrule Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, is one of the company’s high-profile responses to criticism over how it handles problematic content on Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook will name board members later in 2020, but it announced that Thomas Hughes, former executive director for freedom of expression rights group Article 19, will oversee the board’s administrative staff, whose first offices will be in the United States and United Kingdom.
Brent Harris, Facebook’s head of governance and global affairs, said the company had narrowed choices for board members down to “a few dozen people” but no formal offers had been made. He said Facebook hoped the board, which will also be able to recommend policy changes, will start hearing cases this summer.
Facebook is under scrutiny ahead of the US presidential elections in November, after US intelligence agencies said that social media platforms were used in a Russian cyber-influence campaign aimed at interfering in the 2016 US election – a claim Moscow has denied.