With domestic US terror arrests on the rise, Facebook promised more effort to eradicate them. They launched a new independent oversight committee tailing a public conference and discussions with the US Federal Trade Commission. This committee would be overseeing and controlling the contents on the social network. It was forged based on the ‘draft charter’ (which was a part of the compliance agreement), the company had released previously.
This oversight board would improve decision-making and make it more accountable. It will have the authority to revoke decisions made by Facebook about content moderation and can also influence new policies. It will have more authority than most of the shareholders and the CEO of the company.
The board will have 40 members serving three-year terms and would also aid in combating domestic terrorism related to white supremacists.
Facebook deploys techniques like content-matching and machine learning to identify terrorist content. The company stated in a blog post: “While our intent was always to use these techniques across different dangerous organizations, we initially focused on global terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. This led to the removal of more than 26 million pieces of content related global terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda in the last two years, 99% of which we proactively identified and removed before anyone reported it to us,” But, to be successful, training materials like first-person footage of events, are required.
Still, battling white supremacism requires more than just taking down content; it requires defining terrorist groups as well. The company considers posts on or relating to mass or serial murder; a terrorist activity; organized violence or criminal activity; organized hate and human trafficking to be intolerable.
The oversight board will help Facebook attain more vigilance in these realms. They have also deployed the same strategy regarding their proposed cryptocurrency, Libra. The oversight board for Libra aims to answer speculations and concerns or bias regarding the cryptocurrency.
David Marcus, the Head of the Libra team, used twitter to voice his opinion against a few lingering concerns about Libra.
Marcus addressed concerns regarding Libra’s exploitation by terrorists from its huge consumer base and, its threat to the U.S Dollar and the Euro and stated that the Libra Association would be in full agreement with the regulatory framework and would be cooperating with the national banks and legislators to ensure the best available implementation of the cryptocurrency. Their oversight Board will be vigilant in their actions in preventing misuse of the proposed cryptocurrency.
