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Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#2
> A corporate trust managed by financial services firm Brown Brothers Harriman will in turn oversee the board’s budget and administration

Any details on how board members will be appointed, vetted and selected?

This looks like Facebook creating a red herring it can blame for the consequences of policing its platform.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#3
$130M sounds like a tiny sum for content arbitration at Facebook’s scale and the number of jurisdictions it crosses. I mean, nobody’s done it before, so it will be interesting. But I don’t think this is or could be a serious attempt to solve the systemic issues at stake with the platform.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#4
Why does facebook continue to allow the running of political ads and all the headache that comes with it (despite it being a minuscule piece of it's overall revenue)? Power. You can see this as being the most tone-deaf way possible to address the problem, or as a power grab to become an arbiter of truth.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#6
Far better* than the alternative, a transparent process to decide what is acceptable content on social media that is managed by the government, you know, democratically. At least this way Facebook owns the process from the get go, it’s the purest form of ‘regulatory capture’.

Just imagine if technology companies had to adhere to publishing standard like broadcasters and journalists do, because of regulations. All that money from conspiracy theory political ads targeting niche social groups would evaporate. Social media platforms would be far less political influence.

*For Facebook.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#9
post #4

Why does facebook continue to allow the running of political ads and all the headache that comes with it (despite it being a minuscule piece of it's overall revenue)? Power. You can see this as being the most tone-deaf way possible to address the problem, or as a power grab to become an arbiter of truth.

The right-wing has been claiming anti-conservative bias in big tech for a while now. Banning political ads, even if done across the board, would be likely to ramp that up dramatically. https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20756734/trump-google-anti...

For example: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/republicans-criticize-goog...

> President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and other Republican election groups criticized tech giant Google on Tuesday for making it harder for political advertisers to target specific types of people. The GOP groups said the changes will lead directly to suppressing voter turnout and would “disproportionately” hurt Republican candidates.

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