
Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content - otterley
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-pledges-130-million-to-fund-supreme-court-for-content-11576166992
======
LatteLazy
In fairness, here in the UK at least, the print media are going nuts about
Facebook and Google failing to stop fake news and politicians' lies.
Coincidentally they're bashing their competitors for something they themselves
do just as much, make of that what you will...

That is one reason fb (and maybe Google too and twitter and whoever else) are
donating: make an independent sock puppet, they can decide and you just point
at the when people complain. They're a "sin eater".

Its not different to how music and movie companies have banded together in the
past to deal with "moral" crusades. I guess this is like regulatory capture
technically, but where you build the regulator yourself. "Regulatory farming"
maybe?

Personally I'm very dubious about fb (or anyone else) setting up an "arbiter
of truth" and deciding who can advertise and what they can claim. But I prefer
to think it's a marketing/political ploy than a dastardly plot to control our
reality. They make 1000 times more money selling us sugar and then diet pills
than political bs, but the political bs is upsetting that market.

~~~
zmzrr
The mass media is going nuts about not controlling the narrative anymore,
that's why they want to bury big tech. They will lose in the end, so I don't
know if it's worth it to fight.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
Big tech also wants to control the narrative. Due to the nature of their
platforms, it's much more difficult to do but that hasn't stopped them from
making a mess trying.

~~~
wpasc
I think each time Big Tech tries to control the narrative more and more is a
step in a direction that is short sighted.

I get wanting to pull down literal Nazis and I mostly agree. But scope creep
on who is a Nazi and the ever vaguer "hate speech" will spell true trouble as
they get even more unclear.

~~~
bilbo0s
The reason this is happening is becoming more clear. Despite what tech types
like us believe and echo to each other on forums like HN, there is the reality
of an apathetic environment in which most people live.

Most people, most content creators, most content consumers, most people in
general, really don't give 2 mosquito dicks about any of the issues I think
are important.

Privacy from the government? Nope. If you're not a crook, you've got nothing
to fear.

Tech companies having too much info about you that they will share with the
government? Ditto.

Nazis can't get free speech? Who cares. In fact, GOOD, I don't want that crap
popping up on my kids' recommended list anyway. Good job YouTube!

Lately I have been beginning to understand the magnitude of the problem.
Apathy is far more powerful than any government.

And the worst part of all? The only thing they have to do to fuel apathy is
keep the trains running on time and keep the walmart/grocery store shelves
stocked. That's all.

I'm becoming convinced that this problem is being attacked wrong. We need to
stop talking about Nazis and politicians and start talking about some group
that is actually respectable that may be shut out. I don't know off hand what
that content would resemble. But I do know that almost no one likes
politicians, nazis, and pedophiles. So it's making me believe that continuing
to have those groups attaching themselves to our arguments is
counterproductive at this point.

~~~
ivanbakel
Surely there should be something disconcerting about being massively disagreed
with, and finding that you can't imagine any cause more respectable than
pedophiles and fascists?

I agree with you that these things are important, but why do you think so if
you can't formulate a good argument for them that doesn't rely on peoples'
sympathy for Nazis?

~~~
bilbo0s
Because I'm of the opinion that Free Speech is important to protect speech
that most people do _not_ like. Not really to protect speech that most people
have no problem with in any case.

Why do you think it's important if not to protect speech that most people do
not like? I mean, if it's speech or behavior that no one has a problem with,
why does it need your protection?

------
JumpCrisscross
> _A corporate trust managed by financial services firm Brown Brothers
> Harriman will in turn oversee the board’s budget and administration_

Any details on how board members will be appointed, vetted and selected?

This looks like Facebook creating a red herring it can blame for the
consequences of policing its platform.

~~~
deusofnull
from the article,

> While Facebook will select the first 11 members of the board, the eleven
> will choose the remaining board members, with terms lasting three years.

facebook picks the first 11 board members and then those 11 staff new
appointments for 3 year terms, but not sure if the first 11 also control
staffing throughout the org.

if this is a "facebook supreme court" then its kinda fishy if the stakeholders
get to appoint the first 11 judges...

edit: also, tsk tsk wallstreet journal. if you use numerals (11) in a piece of
writing, dont switch to the written number (eleven)!

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _its kinda fishy if the stakeholders get to appoint the first 11 judges_

So it's a Facebook-controlled board.

An honest mechanism would involve outside groups from the start. A legitimate
mechanism probably requires the government to step in.

This is simply a deflection mechanism, a board for PR.

> _if you use numerals (11) in a piece of writing, dont switch to the written
> number (eleven)_

This is common style advice. The numeral represents a quantity. Written out,
it represents the body _per se_.

~~~
deusofnull
Frankly i agree about gov intervention in such matters because how can you
really, honestly take a company at its word that its self-appointed
accountability board is actually independent? Or has power to make decisions
that would hurt Facebook. And companies shouldnt really be expected to do
that, or at least we shouldnt expect that over a government solution.
Something like this is exaccccctly what governments is designed to handle vs
what business can be expected to do on its own.

------
rvz
The millisecond I clicked on this article, the first sentence looks very
strange:

> Facebook Inc. will pay $130 million to establish an independent board
> charged with reviewing how the company moderates its content...

First of all, isn't it ironic that the owner of the largest social networks in
the world is attempting to fund a independent court / board for content with
Facebook money? If they're not the only ones backing this, then both them and
private corporations funding this whilst trying to maintain this institution's
independent nature is going to have lots of trust issues.

Sounds like this is the establishment of the Facebook "Supreme Court" for
Content.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _a independent court_

Facebook picks board members who then pick more board members. The sole
financial backer is Facebook. At a whim, Mark Zuckerberg could ignore, re-
constitute or disband the board.

It's far from independent.

~~~
sitkack
This is about the time when I pine for a higher fidelity knowledge of history
so I could make a pithy comment about the similarities between the reign of
the Candy King and ....?

Alas I cannot, so I'll just continue to foo(); bar(); baz(); my way along.

------
pesenti
Hey I am a Facebook employee and I am really confused by all the comments
here. Really feels like a "Damned if you do/Damned if you don't" situation.
Can anybody actually suggest a better alternative? Not saying there isn't one,
I am just not seeing one being proposed.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Can anybody actually suggest a better alternative?_

Ban non-geographically targeted political ads. Create a public repository of
all political ads.

Creating a puppet entity and calling it a court is dishonest and insulting.

(The only proper solution, of course, is breaking up Facebook into, at the
very least, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Concentrated market power is the
fundamental problem.)

~~~
chapium
I have no obligation to use any of these services, why do they need to be
broken up? Google is a far more threatening power over my day to day
activities.

~~~
dylan604
Even if you don't use these services, they use you. The tools these companies
provide to different websites to use will collect data about you. So just
visiting a website you are affected. You seem to recognize how Google affects
you, but the FB products do as well.

~~~
reroute1
So in that case you are essentially using their products, because their
software and services power lots of other services. There are alternatives, I
just don't care enough to pursue them. Who cares if someone has tracked my
data I like having the internet the way it is.

------
ghostpepper
Are we supposed to believe that the people receiving the $130M will be somehow
independent and make decisions without influence from Facebook? That doesn't
sound very plausible.

~~~
ryanisnan
> The money marks a significant investment in an organization that doesn’t yet
> exist, but could take on responsibility for some of the company’s thorniest
> decisions.

I hope what doesn't happen is that this turns into a way for Facebook to
delay/confuse/distort how decisions are made, and ultimately give Facebook
itself a way to shirk the blame.

~~~
WarDores
That's exactly what this is. They're trying to avoid regulation of any kind,
and "third party audits" are historically a good way to keep the federal
government out of your hair for at least a measurable period of time. The
financial industry learned this quickly.

------
Ajedi32
This actually does feel like a step in the right direction. Having _any_ sort
of appeals process in place is definitely a step up from the Google/YouTube
approach of: you can be banned by an automated process for no apparent reason
and if that happens there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except
raise a stink on social media and hope your story gets enough traction that
someone capable of doing something about it notices the problem and fixes it.

~~~
ceejayoz
Facebook already has an appeals process for content. This just adds another
level, and I'm fairly dubious it'd be any less capricious.

------
jakelazaroff
They don't want to be held responsible for moderating content, so… they're
creating an organization funded solely by themselves. How is that any
different from just doing it in-house?

~~~
ohithereyou
It worked well for the movie studios and MPAA. The MPAA ratings board has the
veneer of being independent without actually being too independent.

~~~
lonelappde
The MPAA is an Association. It's a small government for studios. It's not
intended to be independent, it's intended to balance power along its members.
If there was only one studio it could do ratings in-house.

~~~
ohithereyou
It is likely that an organization like this will become a defacto standard
used by all big social networks as a way to get government off their back,
much like the Hayes Code and then the MPAA ratings board by the movie
industry.

------
Animats
This sounds like the Hays Office.[1] That was the Motion Picture Association
of America's censorship unit from 1934 to 1968.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code)

------
buboard
They should name it Goskomizdat

~~~
vnchr
"Ministry of Truth" has a nice ring to it [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministries_of_Nineteen_Eighty-...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministries_of_Nineteen_Eighty-
Four#Ministry_of_Truth)

------
abhchand
> While Facebook will select the first 11 members of the board, the eleven
> will choose the remaining board members, with terms lasting three years.

Call me skeptical but that's not enough to distance yourself and set up a
"fair" court. Facebook still has lots of influence and I doubt they'll
recommend something that would truly hurt Facebook's bottom line.

------
j-c-hewitt
How is the board "independent"? Just calling it "independent" does not make it
"independent." It sure sounds better, but "Facebook Creates Star Chamber of
Moderators to Rubber Stamp Decisions It Wanted to Make Anyway" doesn't sound
as respectable.

------
imgabe
Facebook: a place to share things approved by a board of corporate trustees.

------
brosinante
The wolves voting for free range sheep.

------
DenverR
Why does facebook continue to allow the running of political ads and all the
headache that comes with it (despite it being a minuscule piece of it's
overall revenue)? Power. You can see this as being the most tone-deaf way
possible to address the problem, or as a power grab to become an arbiter of
truth.

~~~
ceejayoz
The right-wing has been claiming anti-conservative bias in big tech for a
while now. Banning political ads, even if done across the board, would be
likely to ramp that up dramatically.
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20756734/trump-google-
anti...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20756734/trump-google-anti-
conservative-bias-claims-tweets)

For example: [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/republicans-criticize-
goog...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/republicans-criticize-googles-new-
policy-reining-in-political-ads-2019-11-26)

> President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and other Republican election
> groups criticized tech giant Google on Tuesday for making it harder for
> political advertisers to target specific types of people. The GOP groups
> said the changes will lead directly to suppressing voter turnout and would
> “disproportionately” hurt Republican candidates.

------
tolstoshev
They're just trying to avoid a ruling like this one:
[https://www.mtsu.edu/first-
amendment/article/583/pruneyard-s...](https://www.mtsu.edu/first-
amendment/article/583/pruneyard-shopping-center-v-robins)

for social media platforms.

------
jeffdavis
What will be the equivalent to the Bill of Rights, on which this new court
will base its opinions?

------
kleer001
The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe as its handle
was made of wood and they thought it was one of them.

~~~
InitialLastName
In the absence of any context, adages like this don't add anything to the
conversation. Every reader who encounters it will nod and say "yes, that's so
true of the other side".

~~~
kleer001
Thankfully there's the context of OP's post.

------
dvtrn
Hrm. I'm curious how this "Supreme Court" will interact with Facebook's cadre
of paid content moderators and if that "Supreme Court" will be/will have the
power to advocate for that group of workers--or if this is strictly going to
be a single-serving organism in the company.

I'd certainly be less incredulous about this move were there answers to these
inquiries.

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-
facebo...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-
content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona)

------
fumar
I am not picking on FB here. I find it interesting humans created this
network. It has some benefits and plenty of issues due to its business model.
There is strength in the network but the network could succumb to a loss of
participants and thus lose its power. Why are we not advocating for folks to
simply leave the network? I know I am removing lots of the gray areas, but I
am genuinely curious. Is there really no other group of builders that can
provide the market with a FB alternative? I keep reminding myself that at one
point in time AOL felt like the only access point to the internet that
mattered...

------
whateveracct
"Supreme Court"..this sounds nothing like the Supreme Court.

------
smsm42
So what happens is that Facebook chooses 11 people and gives them money so
that they could make Facebook censorship decisions look like they don't come
from Facebook. But since they people in that "court" still are appointed by
Facebook, that's all just a shell game. But now they can point at "independent
verification" by people they chose to pretend there's some objectivity behind
it (even though there can't possibly be).

------
gesman
Wolfs are funding supreme court over fate of sheep.

------
mjfl
I can't wait for this brave new world where you will need to implement a $130
million supreme court to start a new social network.

------
yingw787
$130M sounds like a tiny sum for content arbitration at Facebook’s scale and
the number of jurisdictions it crosses. I mean, nobody’s done it before, so it
will be interesting. But I don’t think this is or could be a serious attempt
to solve the systemic issues at stake with the platform.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/kzokf](http://archive.is/kzokf)

------
r00fus
Great! Corporate takeover of our commons. Sounds completely kosher to me.

------
officeplant
They'll need to hire idubbz so they can have a proper content cop for the
content court.

------
jariel
HN et. al. have become really quite cynical about FB these days, but I suggest
reality is something more pragmatic, however ugly --> yes, FB likes taking
money from anyone, but I'll bet they really, really don't want to be in the
business of content filtering, or having to make such decisions, and would
rather wash their hands of it.

There's little pragmatic leadership coming from the powers that be over this
stuff - obviously there's a good deal of noise out of governments concerning
'fake news' \- but I'd argue it's much more difficult than one would imagine
given 100 different nations, different laws, lobbying power, even aside from
the concerns over really deciding 'what is fake'. I think a lot of TV spots
might reasonably fall under the category of 'not exactly factual' as well.

If there were reasonable, clean and coherent direction from US gov (probably
not going to happen), it would be easier. A lot of the EU thinking/legislation
I suggest mightn't be specifically nuanced enough as well.

I am not cynical about this announcement. I'd wager FB would be somewhere in
the range of 'happy' to comply with a set of reasonable bits of legislation,
especially if was applied universally and coherently. In the absence of anyone
actually doing anything, they're going to set it up themselves.

Impartial? Hardly, but it's probably better than nothing.

$130M is not chump change, this is a big deal. Perhaps wit a change in
governance maybe something will happen. (I'm not making a political statement
other than to say the Trump regime will never do anything about this).

Absent any real collective movement on this issue ... I think this is a
positive step. It's better than the status quo.

------
chadlavi
No thanks!

------
pootpucker
Who is going to run this board? It's probably going to be the last people on
earth you want in those positions.

------
knzhou
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

~~~
rumanator
> Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Actually, it sounds an awful lot like "damned if you don't, damned if you
pretend you do to keep not doing it".

~~~
knzhou
And what exactly do you think "it" is? In terms of _concrete_ actions for
content moderation, not some vague "be good, don't be bad" moralizing.

------
riazrizvi
Far better* than the alternative, a transparent process to decide what is
acceptable content on social media that is managed by the government, you
know, democratically. At least this way Facebook owns the process from the get
go, it’s the purest form of ‘regulatory capture’.

Just imagine if technology companies had to adhere to publishing standard like
broadcasters and journalists do, because of regulations. All that money from
conspiracy theory political ads targeting niche social groups would evaporate.
Social media platforms would be far less political influence.

*For Facebook.

~~~
gonational
In the United States of America we already have something like this, it’s
called the 1st Amendment in the Constitution. Since Facebook enjoys the
privilege of being classified as a “public square”, they do not have the legal
right to censor content at all, unless the content is illegal (threats, etc.).
This is not currently being enforced.

Imagine being so oppressed that your ego feels the need to down-vote this
comment :(

~~~
riazrizvi
1\. We also have a Federal Communication Commission which regulates to prevent
information broadcasters from abusing their power.

2\. > Imagine being so oppressed that your ego feels the need to down-vote
this comment :(

I don't have the ability to downvote replies. I notice too that your comment
has not been edited, so you must have written it at the same time you
originally posted before anyone could have upvoted or downvoted you. Why don't
you do a quick edit, for appearances sake...

