Facebook ‘supreme court’ overturns four content-removal rulings

Facebook’s newly-launched ‘supreme court’ issued its first rulings on
Thursday, overturning four of five decisions to remove controversial
posts from the platform.

The initial batch of rulings did not include Donald Trump’s indefinite
suspension from Facebook and Instagram after the storming of the US
Capitol, but the board said last week it agreed to consider that case.

The four overturned decisions included a post that asserted that
France lacked a health care strategy and included claims that a cure
for Covid-19 exists.

This post was initially removed on grounds that it contributed to
“risk of imminent… physical harm.” But the review board said
Facebook’s rule on misinformation and imminent harm was
“inappropriately vague.”

Another case involved nudity. An Instagram user in Brazil had posted
pictures of women’s nipples as part of a breast cancer awareness
message.

It was removed, but the board said the photos should be allowed in
light of Facebook’s own policy exception for breast cancer awareness.

Also overturned was the removal of a post dramatically condemning
treatment of Uyghur Muslims in China, according to the board.

“None of these cases had easy answers and deliberations revealed the
enormous complexity of the issues involved,” the board said in a post
on its rulings.

“In one case, board members looked at whether, in the context of an
armed conflict, Facebook was right to remove an otherwise-permissible
post because it contained a hateful slur.”

In several of the cases, members of the board questioned whether
Facebook rules were clear enough for users to understand, according to
the post.

– Prompting policy –

The board said that since it started accepting cases in October of
last year, more than 150,000 cases have been appealed to the panel.

“As we cannot hear every appeal, we are prioritizing cases that have
the potential to affect lots of users around the world, are of
critical importance to public discourse or raise important questions
about Facebook’s policies,” the board said.

Facebook’s oversight board is tasked with making final decisions on
appeals regarding what is removed or allowed to remain on the world’s
biggest social network.

It is considering cases involving Nazi propaganda, hate speech,
nudity, pandemic misinformation and dangerous individuals or
organizations.

Launch of the panel came late last year amid rising concerns about
misinformation and manipulation around the US presidential election.

The board was created at the urging of Facebook founder Mark
Zuckerberg with the authority to overrule him and other top
executives.

Facebook has agreed to be bound by decisions on appeals, but rulings
will only apply to cases at issue and will not set precedents.

Rulings can, however, come with recommendations about changing
Facebook policies.

“We believe that the board included some important suggestions that we
will take to heart,” Facebook content policy vice president Monika
Bickert said, noting it could take more than a month to analyze the
recommendations.

– Truly independent? –

An activist group that mockingly named itself The Real Facebook
Oversight Board challenged the legitimacy of what has been referred to
as the social network’s “supreme court.”

Members of the Facebook appeals panel come from various countries and
include jurists, human rights activists, journalists, a Nobel peace
laureate and a former Danish prime minister.

“A handful of hand-picked experts, paid six figures each, ruled on a
limited set of harms in a non-transparent manner with no solutions for
the core threats to democracy caused by Facebook’s business,” the
activist group said in a release.

“While we respect all the individuals on the Oversight Board, the
rulings by the board as a body do not meaningfully address the many,
ongoing harms facilitated by Facebook.”

No board can replace independent oversight anchored in the rule of
law, Stanford University Cyber Policy Center international policy
director Marietje Schaake said in a tweet.

However, the fact that the oversight panel reversed four of the five
content removal decisions is a sign that it does “not intend to extend
Facebook much deference” and will try to “force Facebook to clean up
its content moderation act,” Harvard Law School lecturer Evelyn Douek
reasoned in an online post.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)