Facebook's Oversight Board Can't Intervene, So Stop Asking
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200602/00290044624/facebooks-oversight-board-cant-intervene-so-stop-asking.shtml
As Facebook employees stage a digital walk-out and make their thoughts known about the social media giant’s choice to not intervene in any way on “political posts”, especially those of President Donald Trump, some have called for the newly-created Oversight Board to step up and force a change in Facebook. While the official answer is that they can’t start (because supposedly they haven’t given out laptops yet), the real and very simple reason why the Facebook Oversight Board won’t get involved is because it can’t. It’s not created to function that way, it’s not staffed for something like this, and ultimately, due to its relationship with Facebook, anything it would say on this matter right now would be taken in an advisory capacity at best. Facebook, understandably not wanting to actually give any of its power away, played confidence games with the idea of external, independent oversight, and it’s clear that they fooled a lot of people. Let me explain.
In three-card-monte, the huckster keeps shuffling three playing cards until the victim is likely to guess wrong on where the “money card” may be hiding, and proceeds to flop the cards one by one. For Facebook’s prestidigitation on content moderation, last month’s announcement of the initial 20 highly-regarded experts tapped as members for its independent oversight board is the second card flop, and predictably, the money card is not there.