![]() ![]() Are they wrong? Accountability?įBOB has always been an accountability maneuver for Facebook by outsourcing the hard decisions on content with little downside. Some journalists and their editors are blurring the notions of “independence,” “transparency,” “non-binding recommendations,” and “accountability” into the more palatable headline of “ a Facebook board”-or more to the point “ Facebook”-burying the complicated nuances deeper into their pieces. The origin story of the FBOB is one that seems to periodically get scrubbed, concurrently criticized and glamorized, to further obfuscate who suggested what who rode its star to prominence, or conversely gave it some of their own legitimacy whether it was built as a Supreme Court or just a CYA maneuver etc.īut outside of the confines of the technology policy world, the intricacies of the FBOB tend to matter very little. The Trump decision is the pinnacle of that clash. The full swath of opinions (some held by the same people) range from loosely championing it as the hard work of smart people, or cautiously praising the legal innovation, to mildly curious circumspection and slight unease at its innovatively bizarre characteristics.īut FBOB’s construction as a body that “adjudicates cases” while being funded by the company, in hopes of building “case law” precedent, with little actual power over Facebook’s policy creation was always at odds with the more activist but still generally effusive ethos of some of its members. The outrage cycle has reached a point where FBOB, with its limited accountability, previously awash in backlash, is now somehow starting to seem both predetermined and necessary according to otherwise clear-headed pundits, simply because supposedly there isn’t any other accountability on the horizon. On a deeper level, this has also been wildly successful. On the surface level, for half a day, the world is talking about its governance product, the Oversight Board, rather than literally any of its other, more problematic, products and services. How did we get here?īy creating FBOB and granting it very limited but visible authority, Facebook has effectively shifted the conversation, and Wednesday’s decision is just the latest example. ![]() By design, FBOB deliberates, based mostly on Facebook’s characteristics, only about Facebook-the entity which gave it a mandate-and is (barely) bound by its decrees. The decision though, and the inherent process of reaching it, are clearly not a win nor a loss for democracy, the U.S., or even the industry. ![]() Ironically, a less nuanced, or opposite decision, would have fed into the “breaking news” media frenzy, the hype of a momentous occasion in global online speech regulation, or seismic societal shift, and made the spectacle enough of a legitimating event. FBOB’s PR blitz tells us it wants to both publicly return to sender on making a choice and be taken seriously as an accountability mechanism, which seem to be at odds. The decision is simultaneously a sign of a rebellious FBOB membership denying its role as the ultimate bearer of responsibility, and a clear example of the limitations and ultimate inutility of such a construction. We are left with an anticlimactic resolution, a kind of Rorschach test that seems to be the product of a corporate pseudo-judiciary trying desperately to also be a corporate pseudo-legislative, all the while being stonewalled by Facebook. ![]()
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