The ‘Frustrated’ Facebook Oversight Board May Seek to Examine
Facebook’s so-called “Supreme Court” is reportedly interested in getting the company’s permission to review the machine-learning model used to determine whether Facebook’s posts gained prominence in users’ feeds She goes.
Alan Rusbiger, a former editor of Britain’s Guardian newspaper and one of 20 people to sit on its oversight board on Facebook, said on Tuesday that, five months after the operation, some board members are already facing troubles. Review controversial Facebook rulings on a case-by-case basis. In response, he said, the board may try to explain some of its investigations into how Facebook’s product itself is engineered to influence users.
“We have already been a little disappointed, saying ‘take it down’ or ‘leave it’,” a member of Russia’s House of Lords told members of parliament.
He said: “What if you want to make something less viral? What if you want to apply interstitial? If you do what you do, without commenting on any high-profile current affairs, you don’t want to ban someone for life, but keep them in the ‘sin bin’ so that if they misbehave again, you Can kill? “
Rusibiger, whose comment was previously reported by the Guardian, suggested that the Oversight Board could gain direct access to the “algorithm” employed by Facebook to curate individual users’ feeds.
The Guardian quoted Rusbrieger, who stepped in as editor in 2014 after an explosive coverage of the paper by Edward Snowden Leake, saying: “At some point, we’re going to ask to see the algorithm, I’m sure. , Whatever that means. Do we understand that when we see that it is a different matter.
Facebook did not respond when asked whether it would consider giving the algorithm access to the oversight board, or whether it would allow the board to select its own experts for such a review.
The board, which only began hearing previous cases, is already facing intense pressure to hold a multi-billion-dollar company that has been accused of online extremism as one of hate speech, disinformation, and conspiracy theories Truth says holocaust. US civil rights leaders have accused them of ignoring the problem, despite repeatedly presenting evidence of violence and real-world consequences, adversely affecting religious minorities and communities of color.
In October, Democratic Reps. Anna Ishu and Tom Malinowski accused Facebook of easing extremist violence across the country, stating that American citizens have been deprived of their constitutional rights due to the company’s inaction.
Lawmakers particularly paid attention to the algorithm, which many researchers – and one of Facebook’s own internal studies – have tended to incite social divisions with ideological and hot-button political issues. This is done purposefully, the same researchers say, to increase engagement, which increases profits. (When asked for comment at the time, Facebook did not respond.)
Rusibiger on Tuesday sought to portray the Oversight Board, which is working to select another 20 members without Facebook’s help, being completely independent of Facebook’s corporate structure. Does not exist to “please” the company. The board also laid out Facebook employees in the past, he said, when he attempted to deliberate.
