Facebook said it has publicly made clear that the oversight board is not a replacement for regulation.
SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook s oversight board, which on Wednesday upheld the company s ban of former President Donald Trump, also had some harsh words for its corporate sponsor: Facebook. In applying a vague, standardless penalty and then referring this case to the Board to resolve, Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities, the board wrote in its decision.
But critics aren t convinced that the board s decision represents a triumph of accountability. Many, in fact, see its narrow focus on one-off content issues as a distraction from deeper problems such as Facebook s massive power, its shadowy algorithms that can amplify hate and misinformation and more serious and complicated questions about government regulation.
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Facebook s oversight board: Watchdog or distraction?
FILE - In this April 14, 2020 file photo, the thumbs up Like logo is shown on a sign at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook s oversight board, which on Wednesday, May 5, 2021 upheld the company’s ban of former President Donald Trump, also had some harsh words for its corporate sponsor: Facebook. But critics aren t convinced this decision is a triumph of accountability, and say its actions may actually distract from more fundamental issues that Facebook seems less interested in talking about. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
Facebook s oversight board upheld a ban on Donald Trump using the platform
The board criticised Facebook for applying vague penalties like the Trump ban
They said Facebook was avoiding its responsibilities by sending final decisions to the board to resolve whether the ban should be upheld or whether it is right
Critics of Facebook say the board has too narrow a focus to tackle extremism
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In today s podcast we continue our discussion around the new rules that the government has introduced to regulate the digital space, called the Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media) Ethics Code Rules of 2021. These rules seek to provide a grievance redressal mechanism for users of social media platforms, messaging applications, streaming services as also digital news publishers. These are much stricter and broader in scope compared to the existing rules.
To discuss the implications of these guidelines across several different spaces we have with us , Pranesh Prakash, co -founder of the Center for Internet and Society, and an affiliated Fellow at the Yale Law School’s Information Society project.
Patching the gaps in India’s cybersecurity
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Doctrinal clarity and institutional coherence are essential for a robust cybersecurity posture
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On Sunday, February 28, there was a sensational report in
The New York Times,
China appears to warn India: push too hard and the lights could go out, based on investigations by a United States-based cybersecurity firm. It raised the possibility that the power outage in Mumbai, on October 13, 2020, could have been the result of an attack by a Chinese state-sponsored group. Maharashtra’s Home Minister acknowledged that a report by the Maharashtra Cyber Cell showed that the grid failure was potentially the result of “cyber sabotage”. Meanwhile, the Union Power Ministry denied that the grid failure was linked to any cybersecurity incident, and blamed human error for it. We cannot say who is right since not enough information is available in the public domain. And therein lies the rub.