A look at the making of Facebook's Oversight Board, its members, Zuckerberg's rationale for its existence, and criticisms of the endeavor
one that's also an obvious part of @Facebook's PR strategy. https://www.newyorker.com/... Alex Kozak / @alexkozak : Such amazing reporting here from @Klonick. She manages to capture a lot about tech co deliberations and execution that's often totally hidden. LOVE the bit about getting comms edits from the CEO 😂 Don't accept those uncritically!! https://www.newyorker.com/... Amy X Zhang / @amyxzh : Designing and building tools is *not* “quite different from the work of governing a community”. They are inextricably linked. Whether or not you as a coder are cognizant of it, architecture and design decisions absolutely shape speech and community norms. https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/... Jeff Horwitz / @jeffhorwitz : This line in @Klonick's story regarding FB employee fears that the Oversight Board might be too powerful for the company's good struck me as interesting: I sometimes heard them ask one another, in nervous tones, “What if they get rid of the newsfeed?” https://www.newyorker.com/... Zephyr Teachout / @zephyrteachout : The way to stop the spread of conspiracy theories is not to have a group of well-paid elites sitting around debating what constitutes okay thought. It is to stop the business model that makes money off ACTIVELY PROMOTING addiction and high-conflict content. Vidya / @vidyakrishnan : In case you are looking for something nice to read this weekend.... #Ethiopia https://www.newyorker.com/... Geoffrey Ingersoll / @gpingersoll : I got to this point in the story and alarm bells were ringing: “private Supreme Court that it was creating to help govern speech” https://www.newyorker.com/... John Herrman / @jwherrman : facebook and others have been appropriating legal/civic language and frameworks from the beginning. it has always, ALWAYS been about declaring legitimacy. this is crucial to understanding any major social platform https://twitter.com/... Carole Cadwalladr / @carolecadwalla : NARRATOR: Facebook still has outsourced contractors paid a pittance https://twitter.com/... Rida Qadri / @qadrida : The sad stark contrast between how Facebook treats its actual content moderators vs the Oversight Board. One gets 6 fig salary and trips around the world, the other doesn't get living wage. No evolution, just same old politics of whose labor is valued & what is labeled expertise. https://twitter.com/... Dylan Byers / @dylanbyers : Source familiar confirms: Donald Trump called Zuckerberg to try to get him to make changes to the Facebook Oversight Board. Zuckerberg didn't make changes. https://twitter.com/... Kate Klonick / @klonick : I started my career in journalism, then went to law school, then two federal clerkships, then a PhD, then teaching at a law school. My career was “made” by my 2018 @HarvLRev piece in which FACEBOOK REFUSED TO TALK TO ME and so I talked to dozens of former employees. https://twitter.com/... Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : I don't think @Klonick's brilliantly written piece makes the Board or Facebook look particularly good, but some people are so dug in on the narrative they embraced that they have to pretend it's part of a “pr campaign.” There seems to be nothing that will convince some otherwise. Olivia Solon / @oliviasolon : “Facebook's rules did include a humor exception.” Is just perfect Kevin Roose / @kevinroose : When the delegation from the UK decides to “go the extra mile” and gets a powdered wig from the theater prop room. https://twitter.com/... Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : A lot of people are furious about the embarrassing buy-in by civil society groups and the New Yorker to Facebook's lobbying campaign over its fake board. I've rarely seen this level of credulity towards a firm that *aided* a genocide. https://www.newyorker.com/... David Carroll / @profcarroll : Particularly fascinated with @Klonick's ability to crossover with this hybrid role of reporter/academic who escapes NDA. Would read an article on that backstory. https://www.newyorker.com/... Steven Levy / @stevenlevy : Excellent account of FB Oversight Board by @Klonick, with juicy stuff about Trump. https://www.newyorker.com/... Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : Something I discussed in my piece about the 1st Oversight Board rulings is clear in seeing how people react to this (excellent, detailed) article about the Board. Everyone already has an opinion about the board and views *anything* as confirmation. https://www.newyorker.com/... Ben Smith / @benyt : Getting dunked on by @zeynep is ... concerning. I learned a lot from this piece but of course Facebook's decision to grant access is part of the story. https://twitter.com/... Mathew Ingram / @mathewi : Giving someone exclusive access to a process like this, signing NDAs etc. comes with a price https://twitter.com/... Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur : This is indeed definitive (as you'd expect a New Yorker piece to be). But as @klonick points out, the FOB isn't really a Supreme Court: its decisions don't shape future policy. Plus other points that struck me reading it... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... David Pierce / @pierce : The most Facebook-y thing about the Oversight Board, though, is that everyone thinks it's biased against them https://twitter.com/... Makena Kelly / @kellymakena : this @Klonick piece on facebook's oversight board is fantastic — facebookers cosplaying as founding fathers! ah! https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/... Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : I can't believe anyone takes Facebook's pompous stunt seriously. What an embarrassing story for the New Yorker. The issue is always ad money. Full stop. The rest is just PR. https://www.newyorker.com/... Sarita Schoenebeck / @syardi : this Zuck quote on what Facebook does and doesn't do explains so much: “The core job of what we do is building products that help people connect and communicate,” he said. “It's actually quite different from the work of governing a community.” https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/... David Frum / @davidfrum : What was that Hillary Clinton quote? That dealing with Mark Zuckerberg was like dealing with a hostile authoritarian foreign power? https://twitter.com/... Robyn Caplan / @robyncaplan : This is just a fantastic article. What I've been loving about @Klonick's work on this are all of the details about how Facebook, as an org, functions. Really fascinating to see how the FOB morphed and changed. https://www.newyorker.com/... Brandy Zadrozny / @brandyzadrozny : “During one meeting, they used pens topped with a feather, to evoke the quills used by the Founding Fathers.” https://www.newyorker.com/... Tom Gara / @tomgara : Among the many, many weird things about joining a new company remotely in 2020 is that you don't find out there are foxes living on the roof of the building you're theoretically going to be working in https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/... Robyn Caplan / @robyncaplan : Wow, there are some really incredible details in @Klonick's new piece for @NewYorker on the Facebook Oversight Board https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/... David Pierce / @pierce : This is an amazing story by @klonick. It also makes me think Mark Zuckerberg is still grappling with the fact that he's basically an all-powerful ruler https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/... Cristiano Lima / @viacristiano : Trump pressured Zuckerberg to drop Pam Karlan from the Facebook oversight board, @Klonick writes https://www.newyorker.com/... Karlan went on leave from the board to work on Biden transition, never ruled on cases & is now at DOJ https://www.politico.com/... https://twitter.com/... Evelyn Douek / @evelyndouek : The fact-checking call for this was fun. “And would you say you were fuming?” “..... I guess? I mean, I was pretty mad. Still am tbh.” https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/... Michael Luo / @michaelluo : Despite the pressure from Trump, Facebook did not change the composition of the board. (Trump declined to comment.) Michael Luo / @michaelluo : “...Trump personally called Zuckerberg to say that he was unhappy with the makeup of the board. He was especially angry about the selection of Pamela Karlan, a Stanford Law professor who had testified against him during his first impeachment.” Kashmir Hill / @kashhill : Facebook's content moderation started with outsourced contractors paid a pittance. Now it has a “Supreme Court” of leading intellectuals paid six figures. What a wild evolution expertly told by @Klonick who has had inside access for the past 18 months. https://www.newyorker.com/... Zephyr Teachout / @zephyrteachout : The only person who comes off looking good in this article is @JameelJaffer, who refused to get paid 6 figures to cover for Facebook in their elaborate and pompous cover for self-regulation. https://www.newyorker.com/... via @NewYorker Michael Luo / @michaelluo : EXCLUSIVE: @klonick spent 18 months reporting on the making of Facebook's Oversight Board. Its decisions are binding, but its power is quite circumscribed in a lot of ways. Soon after it started hearing cases, it got the biggest one of all: Trump. https://www.newyorker.com/...
The reporting also surfaces the tensions critics had flagged all along: Zuckerberg declined to alter the Board's composition after Trump personally pressed him, Jameel Jaffer turned down a six-figure seat, Pamela Karlan departed for the Biden transition and DOJ, and Zuckerberg's own framing — that building products differs from governing a community — is exactly what commentators like Amy X Zhang dispute.
First-order effects
The account that Board decisions were binding even if Facebook disagreed now reads against the grain of details like CEO comms edits during drafting — handing critics of the endeavor fresh evidence for their PR-strategy reading just as the Trump ruling approaches.
Zuckerberg's product-versus-governance rationale gets a public airing, forcing the Board's defenders to argue legitimacy on governance grounds rather than design grounds.
Second-order effects
With the Board's independence under scrutiny before its biggest ruling, Facebook's refusal to answer director Thomas Hughes's questions in the Trump case sharpens the legitimacy fight over whether its verdict binds in practice or only on paper.
Just Security's earlier argument that the Board does not legitimize moderation choices for other platforms holds: rivals face no copycat pressure, keeping ad-hoc enforcement — not adjudicated review — the industry default.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, platform-created review bodies become the template for self-regulation ahead of external rulemaking — with their credibility set less by charters than by whether founders accept adverse rulings, as the Trump case will test.
The Karlan path from Board seat to DOJ illustrates the structural pull on such bodies: the same experts platforms recruit are the ones governments draw on, blurring the line between private adjudication and public authority.
The trend: Platforms are institutionalizing internal adjudication bodies to govern speech disputes themselves, pre-empting regulators while betting their legitimacy on accepting rulings they dislike.
@benyt @Klonick C'mon Ben, this is not that surprising or interesting. Every part of this is predictable, as is the fact the FOB wants out there to prove that its serious about serious-person self-regulation, and Facebook will promote the hell out of this passage, preening about …
Can't stop thinking about this Zuckerberg quote in the big @Klonick piece on the oversight board, where he suggests there is a conflict between “values” and “high quality products” https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/...
I would also add that if this ‘insider reporting’ were more than just a puff piece, @Klonick would have asked Zuckerberg about *specific* dollars and cents costs from big decisions like banning Trump. But she didn't, because her entire career is built off getting access to FB. ht…
This is a good, careful, exhaustingly researched piece by @klonick. That Facebook, Nick Clegg & the entire Oversight Board must be absolutely thrilled with. The ultimate imprimatur of legitimacy: an insider access piece in the pages of @newyorker. https://www.newyorker.com/...
I do learn from insider reporting but a “definitive” piece would be framed around how the Facebook Oversight Board is an attempt to gain legitimacy *without* giving up control over fundamental things. And providing this kind of access to get these pieces out is part of that play.…
I respect the Facebook Oversight Board and wish them the best. but “sucked into the private power vortex” is a good description of what's going on. Do we want to support and reinforce pseudo-governance with pseudo-rights protections designed by Facebook? https://twitter.com/...
facebook and others have been appropriating legal/civic language and frameworks from the beginning. it has always, ALWAYS been about declaring legitimacy. this is crucial to understanding any major social platform https://twitter.com/...
When Trump was in power, Facebook made @TheDailyCaller a fact-checking source. (Yes, you read that right.) https://www.thedailybeast.com/ ... With Trump on way out, Facebook appointed to its review board an expert who testified against Trump at his first impeachment https://www.n…
After the Capitol attacks demonstrated yet again just how socially insidious Facebook is, surprising to read this @NewYorker puff piece on such an inconsequential (if fancy-sounding) initiative — one that's also an obvious part of @Facebook's PR strategy. https://www.newyorker.co…
I got to this point in the story and alarm bells were ringing: “private Supreme Court that it was creating to help govern speech” https://www.newyorker.com/...
Such amazing reporting here from @Klonick. She manages to capture a lot about tech co deliberations and execution that's often totally hidden. LOVE the bit about getting comms edits from the CEO 😂 Don't accept those uncritically!! https://www.newyorker.com/...
Designing and building tools is *not* “quite different from the work of governing a community”. They are inextricably linked. Whether or not you as a coder are cognizant of it, architecture and design decisions absolutely shape speech and community norms. https://www.newyorker.co…
This line in @Klonick's story regarding FB employee fears that the Oversight Board might be too powerful for the company's good struck me as interesting: I sometimes heard them ask one another, in nervous tones, “What if they get rid of the newsfeed?” https://www.newyorker.com/..…
The way to stop the spread of conspiracy theories is not to have a group of well-paid elites sitting around debating what constitutes okay thought. It is to stop the business model that makes money off ACTIVELY PROMOTING addiction and high-conflict content.
The sad stark contrast between how Facebook treats its actual content moderators vs the Oversight Board. One gets 6 fig salary and trips around the world, the other doesn't get living wage. No evolution, just same old politics of whose labor is valued & what is labeled expertise.…
Source familiar confirms: Donald Trump called Zuckerberg to try to get him to make changes to the Facebook Oversight Board. Zuckerberg didn't make changes. https://twitter.com/...
I started my career in journalism, then went to law school, then two federal clerkships, then a PhD, then teaching at a law school. My career was “made” by my 2018 @HarvLRev piece in which FACEBOOK REFUSED TO TALK TO ME and so I talked to dozens of former employees. https://twitt…
I don't think @Klonick's brilliantly written piece makes the Board or Facebook look particularly good, but some people are so dug in on the narrative they embraced that they have to pretend it's part of a “pr campaign.” There seems to be nothing that will convince some otherwise.
A lot of people are furious about the embarrassing buy-in by civil society groups and the New Yorker to Facebook's lobbying campaign over its fake board. I've rarely seen this level of credulity towards a firm that *aided* a genocide. https://www.newyorker.com/...
Particularly fascinated with @Klonick's ability to crossover with this hybrid role of reporter/academic who escapes NDA. Would read an article on that backstory. https://www.newyorker.com/...
Something I discussed in my piece about the 1st Oversight Board rulings is clear in seeing how people react to this (excellent, detailed) article about the Board. Everyone already has an opinion about the board and views *anything* as confirmation. https://www.newyorker.com/...
Getting dunked on by @zeynep is ... concerning. I learned a lot from this piece but of course Facebook's decision to grant access is part of the story. https://twitter.com/...
This is indeed definitive (as you'd expect a New Yorker piece to be). But as @klonick points out, the FOB isn't really a Supreme Court: its decisions don't shape future policy. Plus other points that struck me reading it... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
this @Klonick piece on facebook's oversight board is fantastic — facebookers cosplaying as founding fathers! ah! https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/...
I can't believe anyone takes Facebook's pompous stunt seriously. What an embarrassing story for the New Yorker. The issue is always ad money. Full stop. The rest is just PR. https://www.newyorker.com/...
this Zuck quote on what Facebook does and doesn't do explains so much: “The core job of what we do is building products that help people connect and communicate,” he said. “It's actually quite different from the work of governing a community.” https://www.newyorker.com/... https:…
What was that Hillary Clinton quote? That dealing with Mark Zuckerberg was like dealing with a hostile authoritarian foreign power? https://twitter.com/...
This is just a fantastic article. What I've been loving about @Klonick's work on this are all of the details about how Facebook, as an org, functions. Really fascinating to see how the FOB morphed and changed. https://www.newyorker.com/...
Among the many, many weird things about joining a new company remotely in 2020 is that you don't find out there are foxes living on the roof of the building you're theoretically going to be working in https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Wow, there are some really incredible details in @Klonick's new piece for @NewYorker on the Facebook Oversight Board https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/...
This is an amazing story by @klonick. It also makes me think Mark Zuckerberg is still grappling with the fact that he's basically an all-powerful ruler https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Trump pressured Zuckerberg to drop Pam Karlan from the Facebook oversight board, @Klonick writes https://www.newyorker.com/... Karlan went on leave from the board to work on Biden transition, never ruled on cases & is now at DOJ https://www.politico.com/... https://twitter.com/..…
The fact-checking call for this was fun. “And would you say you were fuming?” “..... I guess? I mean, I was pretty mad. Still am tbh.” https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/...
“...Trump personally called Zuckerberg to say that he was unhappy with the makeup of the board. He was especially angry about the selection of Pamela Karlan, a Stanford Law professor who had testified against him during his first impeachment.”
Facebook's content moderation started with outsourced contractors paid a pittance. Now it has a “Supreme Court” of leading intellectuals paid six figures. What a wild evolution expertly told by @Klonick who has had inside access for the past 18 months. https://www.newyorker.com/.…
The only person who comes off looking good in this article is @JameelJaffer, who refused to get paid 6 figures to cover for Facebook in their elaborate and pompous cover for self-regulation. https://www.newyorker.com/... via @NewYorker
EXCLUSIVE: @klonick spent 18 months reporting on the making of Facebook's Oversight Board. Its decisions are binding, but its power is quite circumscribed in a lot of ways. Soon after it started hearing cases, it got the biggest one of all: Trump. https://www.newyorker.com/...