Yesterday, the Oversight Board released to the public its first 20 members. The announcement immediately resulted in some criticisms for its insufficiency of Trump-supporting figures in the team.


The Birth of Facebook's Oversight Board

Facebook recently issued the list of the first 20 members of its Oversight Board—Facebook's partially independent committee that has the authority to make decisions on the fate of banned contents on the social media platform.  

This Oversight Board is being referred to by many as Facebook Supreme Court. The idea of establishing this Facebook committee was brought by Noah Feldman, a law professor from Harvard. Feldman was one of 'expert witnesses' of the Democrats during the impeachment trials. 


No Trump Supporters on the Board?

According to an article, it was noticed that there were no Trump-supporting experts among the announced members of the Oversight Board. And it was announced that the former editor-in-chief of The Guardian was included in the Oversight Board, resulting in conservatives releasing criticisms. The news publication company is known for expressing far-left opinions. 

According to a tweet by Brendan Carr, Facebook launched its Oversight Board and told everyone that it was established to take down controversial Facebook posts. Carr called it Facebook's new 'speech police.'


However, in the last part of his post, Carr said that the board members of the new Facebook committee are not non-partisan people while pointing out one of the members of the board, Pamela Karlan, who was reported to have testified to President Donald Trump's impeachment trials.

According to Carr, the decision of Facebook weakens its claim that Facebook posts will not be filtered for partisan political basis. In a letter written in 2016 by Karlan, she expressed her responsibility to challenge the current president of the United States of America in the court of the opinion of the public. Karlan also stated that the president should be held to account, Carr added. 

According to Damian Green MP from the committee on culture, media, and sport in the House of Commons, the Oversight Board of Facebook had primarily failed to give confidence in its political balance. 


Who is Brendan Carr?

Since 2017, Carr had been serving the country as an FCC Commissioner. He attained the role after being nominated by President Donald Trump. He was formerly an aide to Ajit Pai, the current chairman of the FCC.


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The Powers of the Oversight Board

As the announcement of the 20 members of Facebook's Oversight Board, their powers were also released. Facebook has granted the Oversight Board the authority to decide the fate of banned content by determining whether the ban should be reversed or remain as banned content. They are also given the responsibility to monitor censorship of content on social media platforms.