Douek, speculating as to why a “Supreme Court of Facebook” might be appealing to the company, argues, “Content-moderation decisions on Facebook are hard, and any call is likely to upset a proportion of Facebook users. By outsourcing the decision and blame, Facebook can try to wash its hands of controversial decisions.” If that’s part of the motivation, it doesn’t make the underlying idea better or worse.
But consumers should be aware that Facebook may prefer to manipulate distribution rather than impose an outright ban. A Supreme Court of Facebook with no control of the algorithm, in a context where Facebook wasn’t transparent about what content it penalizes and why, wouldn’t necessarily remove Facebook’s control over free expression and the most important censorship decisions after all.
▻https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/facebook-punish-censorship/577654
#facebook #content_moderation #open_internet #politics_of_social_media
