The New York Times
Heading: Facebook Oversight Board Upholds Social Network’s Ban of Trump
Subheading: A company-appointed panel ruled that the ban was justified at the time but added that the company should reassess its action and make a final decision in six months.
This morning, Facebook’s self-appointed ‘Oversight Board’ upheld Facebook’s decision to suspend Donald Trump’s account, asking Facebook to set an end date for his suspension in the next six months. But what’s the point?
Facebook punted responsibility for upholding the ban to the Oversight Board, and then, the Oversight Board punted it back to Facebook -- all while Facebook continues to spread misinformation and pass blame for their role in helping to incite an insurrection.
There is nothing ‘independent’ about the Facebook Oversight Board. It’s one company failing to address the extremism, disinformation, discrimination, and hate on their own platform and stave off actual regulation.
If you’re still using Facebook, will you help us spread the word about Mark Zuckerberg’s corporate PR stunt designed to shirk responsibility, stave off regulation, and feign interest in checks on its power? Click here to share our post now: [link removed]
We see the irony of asking you to take action on the same platforms we’re fighting to hold accountable, but they are… well… dominant. We have to reach people where they are in order to level the playing field -- and we’re ready to bring the fight right to their own platforms.
So when a company establishes its own quasi-judicial global ‘supreme court’ for self-regulation, people have to know that’s not a constraint on its power -- it’s an absurd embodiment of it.
We can’t be distracted by this spectacle that fails to address Facebook’s systemic failures. The Facebook Oversight Board is not a check on power.
Facebook wholly financed the Board and wrote its restrictive charter and bylaws, which place Facebook’s core profit-drivers -- like its algorithms and ad targeting practices -- outside the Board’s purview.
Its jurisdiction is limited to removing or reinstating individual pieces of content. It has no power to change Facebook’s community guidelines, manipulative algorithm, or toxic business model of surveillance advertising.
So we have to speak out and fight for regulations that serve users -- not corporations and Facebook’s profit margin. Will you share this post now or forward this email to a friend if you don’t use Facebook? [[link removed]]
Thanks for fighting to hold Big Tech accountable,
The Accountable Tech Team
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