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Facebook critics launch independent oversight board to monitor handling of the election

Warning of an urgent threat to democracy, civil rights activists say they've formed an independent Facebook oversight board to scrutinize the role the social media giant is playing in the 2020 election.

Citizens says it recruited academics,researchers and other independent experts to monitor Facebook's handling ofhate speech, misinformation and other content that could undermine the election.

The oversight board has the support of theStop Hate For Profit Coalition, which organized an advertising boycott of Facebook over the summer, the nonprofit said.

In a statement, Facebook dismissed the effort as mostly longtime critics creating a new channel for existing criticisms.

Johnson will siton the board which also includes Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change; Yal Eisenstat, a former elections integrity head at Facebook; Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor; Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League; Toomas Hendrik Ilves, ex-president of Estonia; and Maria Ressa, founder and CEO of the online news service Rappler in the Philippines.

Among those selected to serve on it were Denmarks first female Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and Tawakkol Karman, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Yemen. Five Americans are on the board, including former federal judge Michael McConnell and constitutional law expert Jamal Greene.

In July, civil rights auditors warnedthat Facebooks failure to rein in toxic speech, racism and misinformation could have serious repercussions on the presidential election and may even suppress voter turnout.

Facebook is already being used to suppress the Black vote in 2020 and weve seen all sorts of attacks on Black voters across the country, Robinson said in a statement.

Facebook officials told USA TODAY this week that it is prepared to institute break glass measures to ensure any such posts are seen by fewer people.

Original article
Author: Jessica Guynn

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Jessica Guynn has recently written 10 articles on similar topics including :
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  2. "Civil rights groups from the NAACP to the ADL are calling on advertisers to boycott Facebook in July to protest its failure to remove hate speech". (June 17, 2020)
  3. "An audit faulting Facebook for dealing setbacks to civil rights shows that Mark Zuckerberg's power must be reined in, Rashad Robinson told USA TODAY". (July 8, 2020)
  4. "Facebook, Twitter refuse to remove Trump video that makes it appear that Nancy Pelosiripped up speech when president was saluting a Tuskegee airman". (February 7, 2020)
  5. "Facebook is launching its largest get-out-the-vote drive yet ahead of the presidential election with goal of registering 4 million voters this year". (June 17, 2020)
  6. "Civil rights groups behind #StopHateForProfit boycott give Facebook poor grades, saying it failed to address or fell short of addressing demands". (August 13, 2020)
  7. "Facebook hasn't removed all Holocaust denial content three months after Mark Zuckerberg pledged to ban content that denies or distorts the Holocaust". (January 27, 2021)
  8. "The avatars, clones of Snapchat's popular Bitmoji, are being rolled out to U.S. users on Facebook and Messenger, Facebook says". (May 13, 2020)
  9. "Facebook deploys break glass measures to restrict the flow of election misinformation as civil unrest grows during the wait for election results". (November 6, 2020)
  10. "Tuesday's pledge came ahead of meeting with civil rights leaders over a growing advertising boycott over hate speech and racism on Facebook platforms". (July 7, 2020)
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