Wed, Feb 17th 2021 9:32am —
Mike Masnick
Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about The Oversight Board -- which everyone refers to as the Facebook Oversight Board, because despite its plans to work with other social media companies, it was created by Facebook, and feels inevitably connected to Facebook by way of its umbilical cord. As we noted earlier this month, after the Oversight Board's first decisions came down, everyone who had a strong opinion about the Oversight Board seemed to use the results to confirm their existing beliefs about it.
To some, the Oversight Board is just an attempt for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg to avoid taking responsibility for societal-level impacts of its platform. For others it's a cynical ploy/PR campaign to make it look like it's giving up some of its power. To still others, it's a weak attempt to avoid regulation. To many, it's a combination of all three. And, then, to some, it's an interesting experiment in content moderation that attempts to actually separate some final decision making ability from a website itself. And, again, it could still be some combination of all of those. As I've said since it launched, I find it to be an interesting experiment, and