event
Monday
06
December
Digital Hammer

Debating the Facebook Oversight Board: What lessons for human rights protection and digital platform governance?

Irene Khan, Maina Kiai, Nico Krisch, Peggy Hicks, and Marietje Schaake
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Auditorium A1 A and online

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Content moderation on social media platforms raises complex human rights challenges. The Facebook Oversight Board is a novel experimentation in self-regulation at a time when social media platforms are coming under intense public criticism and renewed government scrutiny. Its successes and limitations could shape State, corporate and civil society responses over and beyond Facebook and Instagram content decisions. At one level there are questions about the limited remit, capacity and “true” independence of the FOB and its ability to meaningfully influence Facebook’s policies and business operations. At another level, there are strategic questions about the extent to which such a model of content oversight could or should be copied by other platforms, what are its shortcomings and how they can be improved by other iterations.

There is also a broader question of the impact of decisions by such a review body, created for and by corporate interests, on the interpretation and development of international human rights law. How can more space and scrutiny be created in such a model for multi-stakeholders, especially civil society?

As FOB completes its first year of full existence, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression is convening a panel comprising a member of the FOB Board, a leading policy thinker and an international law scholar to discuss the challenges of content moderation on social media platforms, the significance of the Oversight Board and what lessons can be drawn from it to better protect human rights online and improve platform governance.

Convenor and moderator:

Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and distinguished Fellow and Research Associate at the AHCD


Welcome remarks:

Jérôme Duberry, Research associate at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy (AHCD), Graduate Institute

Panel:

Maina Kiai, Member of the Facebook Oversight Board, Director of Human Rights Watch’s Alliances and Partnerships Program and former UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association 

Nico Krisch, Professor of International Law, Graduate Institute, and Faculty Affiliate, AHCD

Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, president of the CyberPeace Institute and member of the Real Facebook Oversight Board

Peggy Hicks, Director of the Thematic Engagement, Special Procedures and Right to Development Division, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

 

Event co-sponsored by the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights, the Graduate Institute's Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy and the GISA Technology and Security Initiative.

 

Follow the event: 
on Twitter at #FacebookOversightBoard and #FreedomofExpression.


Read the reports:
The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression has covered the challenges of content moderation and human rights in her reports on Disinformation and Freedom of Expression (A/HRC/47/25) to the Human Rights Council in June 2021 and on Gender Justice and Freedom of Expression (A/76/258) to the UN General Assembly in October 2021.

This is a hybrid event. Please register below to attend the event online or in person.

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