Automated removals have long been criticized as more susceptible to error than human reviewers. Facebook’s ongoing inability to enact a clear, consistent, and transparent content-moderation policy may well lead the board to overturn Facebook’s decision to bar former President Donald Trump, a case that the company has voluntarily brought to the board.įacebook’s removal of an Instagram post about breast cancer (which the company conceded was incorrect) was used by the board as an opportunity to express concerns about the company’s use of automation, as well as the sweep of its policy against nudity. Indeed, many of the issues raised by the board reflect longstanding criticisms from civil society about Facebook’s content-moderation scheme, including the company’s use of automated removal systems, its vague rules and unclear explanations of its decisions, and the need for proportionate enforcement. While the board’s willingness to depart from its corporate creator’s views is noteworthy, the bigger message is that Facebook’s content-moderation rules and its enforcement of them are a mess and the company needs to clean up its act. The Facebook Oversight Board, in deciding its first cases, overturned five out of six of the company’s decisions. This originally appeared in Just Security. Attend the Brennan Legacy Awards Dinner.Advance Constitutional Change Show / hide.National Task Force on Democracy Reform & the Rule of Law.Government Targeting of Minority Communities Show / hide.Campaign Finance in the Courts Show / hide.Gerrymandering & Fair Representation Show / hide.Ensure Every American Can Vote Show / hide.“When you decide to take down someone’s entire account, and to ban their speech, you really deprive them of their right to association and their right to live their lives. “We hear so much about Donald Trump and about high-profile actors that have been censored by Facebook, but there are thousands of people whose accounts have been taken down and the board is their last source to get it back from Facebook. “The reason we’re talking about content moderation right now is that it’s started to happen to powerful people,” Klonick told the committee. Even if that takes many sessions with coders talking very slowly so that we understand them, I think we need to understand what these machines are.”Īppearing alongside Rusbridger was legal academic Kate Klonick, who shadowed the board as it was set up. “People say to me, ‘Oh, you’re on the board, but it’s well known that the algorithms reward emotional content that polarises communities because that makes it more addictive.’ Well I don’t know if that’s true or not, and as a board we’re going to have to get to grips with that. Because it is going to be a very difficult thing to understand how this artificial intelligence works,” Rusbridger said. “I think we need more technology people on the board who can give us independent advice from Facebook. Now the board is in the process of finding another 20 board members without Facebook’s direct involvement. Facebook selected the first 20 members, in conjunction with four co-chairs directly appointed by the social network. Whether we’ll understand when we see it is a different matter.”īefore the board would be able to examine the Facebook algorithm, Rusbridger suggested it would need to expand its numbers. At some point we’re going to ask to see the algorithm, I feel sure, whatever that means. But we have to get our feet under the table first, and prove that we can do what we want. “These are all things that the board may ask Facebook for in time. “What happens if you want to make something less viral? What happens if you want to put up an interstitial? What happens if, without commenting on any high-profile current cases, you didn’t want to ban someone for life but wanted to put them in a ‘sin bin’ so that if they misbehave again you can chuck them off? “We’re already a bit frustrated by just saying ‘take it down’ or ‘leave it up’,” Rusbridger told the House of Lords communications and digital committee on Tuesday.
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