Facebook names first members of oversight board

Facebook’s new content Oversight Board will include a former prime minister, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and several constitutional law experts and rights advocates among its first 20 members, the company announced in a blog post.

The independent board will be able to overturn Mark Zuckerberg's decisions on whether individual pieces of content should be allowed on Facebook and Instagram.

The blog post says, “we expect them to make some decisions that we, at Facebook, will not always agree with – but that’s the point: they are truly autonomous in their exercise of independent judgment. We also expect that the board’s membership itself will face criticism. But its long-term success depends on it having members who bring different perspectives and expertise to bear.” 

The oversight board will focus on challenging content issues including hate speech and harassment and people's safety.

The social networking giant said the board's members have lived in 27 countries and speak at least 29 languages. However, a quarter of the group and two of the four co-chairs are from the United States, where the company is headquartered.

The co-chairs, who selected the other members jointly with Facebook, are former US federal circuit judge and religious freedom expert Michael McConnell, constitutional law expert Jamal Greene, Colombian attorney Catalina Botero-Marino and former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

The board will make public, binding decisions on controversial cases where users have exhausted Facebook's usual appeals process.