A group of high-profile Facebook critics on Friday announced the launch of what they are calling the “Real Facebook Oversight Board,” an effort that aims to counter an independent board established by Facebook last year to oversee its decisions on content moderation. From a report: The opposing effort represents how political the fight between Facebook and its critics has become in the lead-up to the presidential election. The group includes leaders from the Stop Hate for Profit boycott, like Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, and Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, as well as prominent Facebook critics like Roger McNamee and some journalists and pundits. The new oversight board rival cites an “urgent threat to democracy” leading up to its launch. It criticizes the independent oversight board, funded by Facebook, for its delayed launch. The board is billing its formation as an “emergency response” to urgent issues like voter suppression, election security and misinformation. The first of its meetings — which appear to be more like media events than deliberations on content decisions — will be held next week, broadcast on Facebook Live, with New York Times columnist Kara Swisher hosting. The response comes just after the actual Facebook-funded appeals board announced that it would be launching earlier than expected. […] A document obtained by Axios that appears to be a pitch deck for the project alleges that the Facebook-funded oversight board is “little more than a corporate whitewashing exercise.”

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Source: Slashdot – Facebook Critics Take on Its Oversight Board