Facebook’s self-styled ‘Oversight Board’ (FOB) has introduced an operational change that appears supposed to reply to criticism of the boundaries of the self-regulatory content-moderation choice evaluate physique: It says it’s began accepting requests from customers to evaluate choices to go away content material up on Facebook and Instagram.
The transfer expands the FOB’s remit past reviewing (and principally reversing) content material takedowns — an arbitrary restrict that critics stated aligns it with the financial incentives of its dad or mum entity, on condition that Facebook’s enterprise advantages from elevated engagement with content material (and outrageous content material drives clicks and makes eyeballs stick).
“So far, users have been able to appeal content to the Board which they think should be restored to Facebook or Instagram. Now, users can also appeal content to the Board which they think should be removed from Facebook or Instagram,” the FOB writes, including that it’s going to “use its independent judgment to decide what to leave up and what to take down”.
“Our decisions will be binding on Facebook,” it provides.
The capacity to request an attraction on content material Facebook wouldn’t take down has been added throughout all markets, per Facebook. But the tech large stated it should take some “weeks” for all customers to get entry because it stated it’s rolling out the function “in waves to ensure stability of the product experience”.
While the FOB can now get particular person items of content material taken down from Facebook/Instagram — i.e. if the Board believes it’s justified in reversing an earlier choice by the corporate to not take away content material — it can not make Facebook undertake any related options vis-a-vis its content material moderation insurance policies usually.
That’s as a result of Facebook has by no means stated it will likely be certain by the FOB’s coverage suggestions; solely by the ultimate choice made per evaluate.
That in flip limits the FOB’s capacity to affect the form of the tech large’s method to speech policing. And certainly the entire effort stays inextricably certain to Facebook which devised and structured the FOB — writing the Board’s constitution and bylaws, and hand choosing the primary cohort of members. The firm thus continues to exert inescapable pull on the strings linking its self-regulatory automobile to its profitable people-profiling and ad-targeting empire.
The FOB getting the flexibility to evaluate content material ‘keep ups’ (if we are able to name them that) can be basically irrelevant when you think about the ocean of content material Facebook has ensured the Board received’t have any say in moderating — as a result of its restricted assets/man-power imply it might solely ever take into account a fantastically tiny subset of instances referred to it for evaluate.
For an oversight physique to offer a significant restrict on Facebook’s energy it could must have significantly extra meaty (i.e. authorized) powers; be capable of freely vary throughout all points of Facebook’s enterprise (not simply evaluate person generated content material); and be really unbiased of the adtech mothership — in addition to having significant powers of enforcement and sanction.
So, in different phrases, it must be a public physique, functioning within the public curiosity.

Instead, whereas Facebook applies its military of in home attorneys to combat precise democratic regulatory oversight and compliance, it has splashed out to trend this bespoke paperwork that may align with its speech pursuits — handpicking a handful of exterior consultants to pay to carry out a content material evaluate cameo in its disaster PR drama.
Unsurprisingly, then, the FOB has principally moved the needle in a speech-maximizing route to date — whereas expressing some frustration on the restricted deck of playing cards Facebook has dealt it.
Most notably, the Board nonetheless has a call pending on whether or not to reverse Facebook’s indefinitely ban on former US president Donald Trump. If it reverses that call Facebook customers received’t have any recourse to attraction the restoration of Trump’s account.
The solely obtainable route would, presumably, be for customers to report future Trump content material to Facebook for violating its insurance policies — and if Facebook refuses to take that stuff down, customers might attempt to request a FOB evaluate. But, once more, there’s no assure the FOB will settle for any such evaluate requests. (Indeed, if the board chooses to reinstate Trump which will make it tougher for it to simply accept requests to evaluate Trump content material, at the very least within the brief time period (within the pursuits of conserving a various case file, so… )

How to ask for a evaluate after content material isn’t eliminated
To request the FOB evaluate a bit of content material that’s been left up a person of Facebook/Instagram first has to report the content material to Facebook/Instagram.
If the corporate decides to maintain the content material up Facebook says the reporting individual will obtain an Oversight Board Reference ID (a ten-character string that begins with ‘FB’) of their Support Inbox — which they will use to attraction its ‘no takedown’ choice to the Oversight Board.
There are a number of hoops to leap by way of to make an attraction: Following on-screen directions Facebook says the person shall be taken to the Oversight Board web site the place they should log in with the account to which the reference ID was issued.
They will then be requested to offer responses to plenty of questions on their causes for reporting the content material (to “help the board understand why you think Facebook made the wrong decision”).
Once an attraction has been submitted, the Oversight Board will resolve whether or not or to not evaluate it. The board solely selects a sure variety of “eligible appeals” to evaluate; and Facebook has not disclosed the proportion of requests the Board accepts for evaluate vs submissions it receives — per case or on mixture. So how a lot probability of submission success any person has for any given piece of content material is an unknown (and possibly unknowable) amount.
Users who’ve submitted an attraction in opposition to content material that was left up can examine the standing of their attraction through the FOB’s web site — once more by logging in and utilizing the reference ID.
An additional limitation is time, as Facebook notes there’s a time restrict on interesting choices to the FOB
“Bear in mind that there is a time limit on appealing decisions to the Oversight Board. Once the window to appeal a decision has expired, you will no longer be able to submit it,” it writes in its Help Center, with out specifying how lengthy customers should get their attraction in (we requested Facebook to verify this and it’s 15 days).