Good morning, it’s Lucinda Southern here, Adweek media editor, welcoming you to another Monday.
As the weeks of 2020 trickle away and most of us want to look ahead to brighter futures, there are some organizations stuck on past events.
Remember Facebook’s independent oversight board which started with 20 academics and journalists? Last week, it announced it has selected six cases (out of 20,000 user submissions since October). Over the next three months, it will deliberate on whether Facebook’s decision to remove this content was sound. On Friday, it added another case, according to my colleague David Cohen’s reporting.
These cases cover alleged hate speech, Covid-19 misinformation and incitements of violence. Interestingly, the board is not yet considering any posts that contain misinformation about the 2020 U.S. election.
Crucially, the board’s power is limited. It can only interpret Facebook’s current rules rather than set new ones. It cannot request internal documents from the platform.
The platform faces pressure from all angles. But eyes will be on the board’s actions as cases ramp up in the hope Facebook’s latest tactic to clean up its content is more than PR spin.
You can track all of David’s reporting on Facebook’s oversight board here. It’s well worth a read, if not to familiarize yourself with Facebook’s pledges. Given the year we've had, I'm not putting too much stock into 2021 predictions, but it's a safe bet that these issues are not going away.
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Thank you and have a great week!
Lucinda
