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Democrats concerned by Facebook oversight board's limited authority

House of Representatives on Tuesday urged Facebook Inc to enact the policy recommendations of the companys oversight board, empowering the independent group of advisers, which the lawmakers said have limited responsibilities.

Facebooks independent board has the authority to overturn decisions by the company and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on whether individual content should be allowed on Facebook and Instagram.

The oversight board focuses on a small slice of challenging issues, including hate speech, harassment and peoples safety.

may simply act as a smokescreen behind which Facebooks executives will maintain ultimate control over its content moderation decision-making process, the letter said.

The members said the boards powers, as defined by its charter, limit it to merely enforcing current content policies the company has adopted.

Lawmakers, concerned about election interference, have been interrogating social media giants in the run up to the November presidential elections. Zuckerberg recently testified in front of a congressional committee and was grilled by both Democrats and Republicans about Facebooks content moderation decisions.

In May, the worlds largest online social network, with 2.7 billion monthly active users, named its first set of oversight board members.

Original article
Author: Nandita Bose

Nandita Bose has recently written 8 articles on similar topics including :
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