Will Facebook's new oversight board be a radical shift or a reputational shield?

The panel has the potential to reshape how Facebook shapes the world and possibly introduce a new era of social media governance

A new era of social media governance began Wednesday, when the first 20 members of Facebook's long-awaited oversight board were announced. The international panel of free expression advocates, journalists, a former prime minister, a Nobel laureate, and law professors will have final say over certain content moderation decisions for the world's largest social media platform, independent of Facebook's executives and staff.

This limited transfer of power to an independent entity represents something of a sea change for a company that has since its founding been under the tight control of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is chairman of the board and controls a majority of the company's voting shares.