San Francisco (AFP)
A Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a former Danish Prime Minister ... Facebook has chosen personalities representing a wide range of countries, languages and backgrounds to compose its council of wise men who will decide on the contentious content in the future .
It is "the beginning of a fundamental change in the way some of the toughest Facebook content decisions will be made," said Facebook public policy director Brent Harris.
The project of a sort of "Supreme Court", having the final say on whether or not to maintain controversial content on Facebook and Instagram networks, was unveiled in late January after being announced in late 2019 by CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
For the time being, it will be made up of 20 members with equal parity between men and women.
Their number will be increased to 40 "over time," said the social network on Wednesday, stressing that they "had significant expertise in several key areas", including freedom of expression, digital rights, religious freedom. , content moderation, digital copyrights or online security, internet censorship and transparency.
On the women's side, it includes Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former Danish Prime Minister and former president of the NGO Save the Children, as well as the 2011 Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Kolkata Abdel-Salam Karman, who is also a journalist, activist and woman. policy committed to the defense of women's rights.
Among the men, Andras Sajo, former Hungarian judge and vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights, and Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of the British daily newspaper The Guardian who gave worldwide visibility to the group after the revelations of 'Edward Snowden.
The journalist made the decision in August 2013 to destroy the hard drives containing the information leaked to the newspaper by the whistleblower, rather than comply with a request from the British government to return the data.
In recent years, Facebook has come under fire from many critics, accusing it of not acting aggressively to suppress hate messages. In particular, he had been slow to respond to propaganda on his website by the Burmese army against the Rohingya minority.
- Definitive -
Attacked in court, Facebook had to resolve to act by creating this council of wise men.
"The board will make final and binding decisions on whether specific content should be allowed or removed from Facebook and Instagram," said Facebook.
Members speak the 10 most common languages in the world.
"Today, the impact of social media on people's lives is difficult to grasp. It can often be positive," council members said in a blog post on Wednesday.
As the world faces the coronavirus pandemic, "social media has become a lifeline to help people and communities stay connected," they note.
But they can also disseminate "hateful, harmful and misleading speech", they underline, noting that the question of whether or not to maintain certain content "has become more and more urgent for society".
The implementation of this supervisory board comes shortly after an American judge confirmed the fine of $ 5 billion imposed last summer by the American consumer protection agency, the FTC, on Facebook for not have been able to protect the personal data of its users.
Facebook is committed to publicizing all decisions made by its supervisory board "on its website, while protecting the identity and privacy of those involved".
The board will also publish an annual public report to assess its work and how Facebook is meeting its commitments.
The powerful network, on the other hand, will not be able to dismiss the members or staff of the council, which will rely on a fund of $ 130 million.
At the end of 2018 when the project of a council of wise men had been mentioned, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, had insisted on the need for independence and transparency of such a council which will take into account cultural specificities and regional sensitivities for make decisions.
A naked breast that can shock in a conservative society will not have the same effect in another environment.
"We are essentially building a new governance model for the platform," said Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who co-chairs the Council with two American law professors, as well as Catalina Botero Marino, Colombian lawyer and former special rapporteur for freedom of expression. to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
© 2020 AFP