Facebook forms ‘Supreme Court’: Nobel winner, former Guardian editor, ex-PM members
09 May, 2020
A year . 5 after announcing its creation, Facebook has named the original 20 members of its oversight board, a quasi-independent panel that's to make decisions on thorny issues.
The oversight panel is supposed to rule on difficult content issues, such as for example whether Facebook or Instagram posts constitute hate speech. It'll be empowered to make binding rulings on whether posts or advertisings violate the company’s standards. Any other findings it makes will be looked at ‘guidance’ by Facebook.
Facebook cannot remove members or staff of the board, which is supported by a $130 million irrevocable trust fund.
The board’s members were named by Facebook and hail from a wide swath of regions all over the world. They include Tawakkol Karman, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Yemen, Alan Rusbridger, the former editor-in-chief of British newspaper The Guardian, and Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former prime minister of Denmark.
According to Facebook, the Oversight Board members have lived in more than 27 countries, and speak at least 29 languages included in this.
“For the first time, an independent body can make final and binding decisions on what stays up and what is removed,” Thorning-Schmidt said.
“This is a major deal; we are basically building a new model for platform governance.”
Critics call the oversight board a bid by Facebook to forestall regulation and even an eventual breakup.
Here is a list of the members of the Facebook “supreme court.
Four co-chairs
Catalina Botero-Marino: A former special rapporteur for freedom of expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the business of American States; currently dean at regulations school of the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia.
Jamal Greene: Columbia University law professor focusing on constitutional rights adjudication.
Michael McConnell: Former US federal judge who's now a constitutional law professor at Stanford University.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt: Former prime minister of Denmark who later served as CEO of Save the kids.
Other members
Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei: A human rights advocate at the Open Society Initiative for West Africa.
Evelyn Aswad: a University of Oklahoma law professor and former STATE DEPT. attorney on international human rights standards.
Endy Bayuni: Former editor-in-chief of the Jakarta Post.
Katherine Chen: Communications scholar at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan who studies social media, mobile news and privacy.
Nighat Dad: Digital rights advocate who offers digital security training to ladies in Pakistan and across South Asia.
Pamela Karlan: Stanford Law professor and former US Justice Department official who is on the board of the American Constitution Society.
Tawakkol Karman: Nobel Peace Prize laureate and activist who promoted non-violent change in Yemen through the Arab Spring.
Maina Kiai: A director of Human Rights Watch’s Global Alliances and Partnerships Program, and a former UN special rapporteur who has been a human rights advocate in Kenya.
Sudhir Krishnaswamy: Rights activist and vice chancellor of the National Law School of India University.
Ronaldo Lemos: A technology, intellectual property and media legal professional who co-created a national internet rights law in Brazil, and teaches law at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
Julie Owono: Digital rights and anti-censorship advocate in Africa who leads Internet Sans Frontieres.
Emi Palmor: A former director general of the Israeli justice ministry who led initiatives to handle discrimination and promote diversity.
Alan Rusbridger: A former editor-in-chief of The Guardian who oversaw its Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Edward Snowden disclosures.
Andras Sajo: A former judge and vice president of the European Court of Human Rights.
John Samples: A vice president of the US-based libertarian Cato Institute who writes extensively on social media and speech regulation.
Nicolas Suzor: A Queensland University of Technology Law School professor who focuses on the governance of internet sites.
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