Online network
Supervisory body demands more transparency from Facebook
Facebook’s board of directors is demanding more transparency from the company. Photo: Richard Drew / AP / dpa
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Facebook’s supervisory body is calling for the company to be more transparent about which posts are deleted and which remain on the platform. This is communicated too imprecisely.
Facebook has caught a reprimand from its influential independent board of directors in the controversy surrounding the preferential treatment of celebrity users.
The online network was “not completely accommodating” with its information on the corresponding content program, the committee decided on Thursday. It also asked Facebook to be more transparent about the question of why posts were removed or left on the platform. This is not clear to many users from Facebook’s communication.
The body consists of legal experts, activists and former politicians and is a kind of “Supreme Court” of Facebook, whose decisions even founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg cannot overrule.
Numerous users are exempt from the rules
The “Wall Street Journal” recently wrote, citing internal documents of the online network, that Facebook had created a system in which numerous users were in fact excluded from the application of the content rules. In doing so, they could have allowed themselves missteps that would have consequences for ordinary members. Facebook’s rules prohibit, among other things, posts with insults or threats and the violation of other people’s privacy.
According to Facebook, the system called “Cross-Check” was set up in order to avoid errors by checking decisions on individual posts a second time. According to an internal Facebook document quoted by the Wall Street Journal, in many cases this became a kind of free ticket for celebrities.
According to the newspaper report, at least 5.8 million Facebook users are in the “cross-check” program. Before the newspaper report drew attention to the system, Facebook informed the Oversight Board upon request that it had only been used for a small number of decisions. After the criticism, Facebook asked the committee to put “Cross Check” to the test.