Facebook’s much-hyped oversight board that can overrule even CEO Mark Zuckerberg likely won’t make any decisions until after Election Day

• Facebook’s oversight board — a pseudo-independent group sometimes called Facebook’s “Supreme Court” that can review and overrule the company’s decisions to remove posts — announced its launch Thursday.
• Facebook and Instagram users will now be able to submit appeals on content moderation to the board for review. The board has given itself a 90-day window to start reviewing cases, meaning that it’s unlikely to make any decisions before Election Day in the US on November 3.
• Facebook has lauded the Oversight Board as a way to step up its content-moderation policies in the face of criticism over its handling of viral misinformation, and in particular political posts that contain falsehoods. 
• But experts have raised concerns that the board allows Facebook to outsource controversial decisions, while also maintaining control over its policies and platform.
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The group Facebook has tasked with reviewing the company’s controversial content-removal decisions has announced its launch less than two weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election.

The so-called Facebook Oversight Board announced Thursday it would start fielding requests to review content-moderation decisions. Some Facebook and Instagram users are now able to submit appeals to the board if they disagree with the company’s decision to remove any of their content. The oversight board is able to overrule even Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company has said, and it can review appeals for moderation decisions made on Facebook and Instagram, but not on other properties like WhatsApp or Messenger.

Since late 2018, company executives have touted the oversight board, sometimes called Facebook’s “Supreme Court,” as a way to hold the company accountable without external regulation. But two years later and with less than two weeks until Election Day, it’s unlikely the board will make any decisions before November 3. even as the company faces increased scrutiny in the immediate lead-up to a contentious and polarizing US election.

In a call with reporters on Thursday, Facebook said it has no plans to review election-related content prior to November 3. Brent Harris, the company’s director of governance and global affairs, said it would not push any election-related cases for “expedited review,” which Facebook has the ability to ask for under “exceptional circumstances.”

The oversight board also declined to disclose when it exactly would start reviewing user appeals, but its administrative director, Thomas Hughes, said Thursday it would disclose the first cases it was reviewing “in coming weeks.”

To start, users will only be able to submit appeals on content of their own that was removed. In the future, users will be able to appeal decisions on another user’s content. The Board is giving itself a 90-day timeframe to come to a conclusion on each case it reviews, and is giving Facebook 15 days to enforce the board’s decision on the content in question.

But as critics have noted, the role of the Facebook Oversight Board isn’t as independent or clear-cut as Facebook has said. Although each decision is “binding,” it only applies to the particular post in question. After that, it’s up to Facebook to decide whether the board’s decision should serve as precedent or apply more broadly to similar content.

Board co-chair Jamal Greene told reporters on Thursday that the board would “expect” Facebook to “incorporate the board’s decisions into their own content moderation policies,” although he pointed out the company isn’t “obliged to.” Harris, the governance director, said Facebook would “seek” to apply the same resolution to “similarly situated content” after the board makes its decisions.

Experts have also criticized the board as allowing Facebook to outsource its responsibility for making controversial content-moderation decisions.

With more than two billion people using Facebook and Instagram, and hundreds of millions of pieces of content removed each year, the Oversight Board has an outsized responsibility. Co-chair Helle Thorning-Schmidt told reporters that the board would actually hear “very few” cases, and will prioritize cases whose decisions could have a wider impact on a broader berth of appeals.