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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

#21

Post by deusofnull »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #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.

from the article,

> While Facebook will select the first 11 members of the board, the eleven will choose the remaining board members, with terms lasting three years.

facebook picks the first 11 board members and then those 11 staff new appointments for 3 year terms, but not sure if the first 11 also control staffing throughout the org.

if this is a "facebook supreme court" then its kinda fishy if the stakeholders get to appoint the first 11 judges...

edit: also, tsk tsk wallstreet journal. if you use numerals (11) in a piece of writing, dont switch to the written number (eleven)!

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

#23

Post by pesenti »

Hey I am a Facebook employee and I am really confused by all the comments here. Really feels like a "Damned if you do/Damned if you don't" situation. Can anybody actually suggest a better alternative? Not saying there isn't one, I am just not seeing one being proposed.

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

#24

Post by cheapsteak »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #14

They don't want to be held responsible for moderating content, so… they're creating an organization funded solely by themselves. How is that any different from just doing it in-house?

The amount of money required to adequately do what the world wants facebook to do might exceed the amount required to fund the 3rd party org

If the org is not as competent as people wish it to be, the blame is somewhat insulated

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

#27

Post by Ajedi32 »

This actually does feel like a step in the right direction. Having _any_ sort of appeals process in place is definitely a step up from the Google/YouTube approach of: you can be banned by an automated process for no apparent reason and if that happens there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except raise a stink on social media and hope your story gets enough traction that someone capable of doing something about it notices the problem and fixes it.

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

#28

Post by lonelappde »

pesenti wrote: post #23

Hey I am a Facebook employee and I am really confused by all the comments here. Really feels like a "Damned if you do/Damned if you don't" situation. Can anybody actually suggest a better alternative? Not saying there isn't one, I am just not seeing one being proposed.

Sometimes you paint yourself into a corner and no good options remain.

Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose.

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

#29

Post by rvz »

The millisecond I clicked on this article, the first sentence looks very strange:

> Facebook Inc. will pay $130 million to establish an independent board charged with reviewing how the company moderates its content...

First of all, isn't it ironic that the owner of the largest social networks in the world is attempting to fund a independent court / board for content with Facebook money? If they're not the only ones backing this, then both them and private corporations funding this whilst trying to maintain this institution's independent nature is going to have lots of trust issues.

Sounds like this is the establishment of the Facebook "Supreme Court" for Content.

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

#30

Post by JumpCrisscross »

deusofnull wrote: post #21
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #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.

from the article, > While Facebook will select the first 11 members of the board, the eleven will choose the remaining board members, with terms lasting three years. facebook picks the first 11 board members and then those 11 staff new appointments for 3 year terms, but not sure if the first 11 also control staffing throughout the org. if this is a "facebook supreme court" then its kinda fishy if the stakeholders get…

> its kinda fishy if the stakeholders get to appoint the first 11 judges

So it's a Facebook-controlled board.

An honest mechanism would involve outside groups from the start. A legitimate mechanism probably requires the government to step in.

This is simply a deflection mechanism, a board for PR.

> if you use numerals (11) in a piece of writing, dont switch to the written number (eleven)

This is common style advice. The numeral represents a quantity. Written out, it represents the body per se.

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