How Facebook undercut the Oversight Board
by Casey Newton from The Verge - All Posts on (#5Z5D4)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today let's talk about the highest-profile conflict to date between Meta and its Oversight Board, an independent organization the company established to help it navigate the most difficult questions related to policy and content moderation.
Since before the board was created, it has faced criticism that it primarily serves a public-relations function for the company formerly known as Facebook. The board relies on funding from Meta, it has a contractual relationship with it governing its use of user data, and its founding members were hand-picked by the company.
Aiding in the perception that it's mostly a PR project is the fact that to date, Meta and the board have rarely been in conflict. In the first quarter of its existence, of 18...