Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman, one of the anti-Trump witnesses at yesterday’s impeachment inquiry, is reportedly playing a critical role in Facebook’s establishment of its content oversight board, colloquially dubbed the “Facebook Supreme Court.”
The oversight board will, among other things, review cases from banned Facebook users who argue that the termination of their accounts was unwarranted. It is meant to give banned users the right to appeal — but this is corporate due process, not state due process. The “Facebook Supreme Court” will be set up by Facebook and could be shut down at any time by Facebook.
According to a report by Harvard Law Today, Feldman was the one who first proposed the idea of a “Facebook Supreme Court” in January 2018. The purpose, according to the report, is to help Facebook “balance competing values that range from supporting free expression to combating hate speech.”
The idea intrigued Facebook, which brought Feldman on as an adviser. The social network then asked him to produce a white paper on the idea, according to Harvard Law Today. Plans to establish the Oversight Board were officially announced by the company later in the year. – READ MORE