Facebook's oversight board: Watchdog or distraction?

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.

“It's much easier to talk about Donald Trump" than about Facebook's business, said Color Of Change President Rashad Robinson, a longtime critic of Facebook. “They want to keep us in conversation about this piece of content or that piece of content, that this is about freedom of speech rather than about algorithms amplifying certain types of content, which has nothing to do with freedom of speech."

The board, Robinson said, is “is a ruse to stave off regulatory action."

Coming after months of deliberation and nearly 10,000 public comments on the matter, the board's decision on Trump told Facebook to specify how long the suspensions would last, saying that its “indefinite” ban on Trump was unreasonable. The ruling, which gives Facebook six months to comply, effectively postpones any possible Trump reinstatement and puts the onus for that decision squarely back on the company.

“They made the right choice,” said Yael Eisenstat, a former CIA officer who worked for six months in 2018 as Facebook’s global head for election-integrity operations for political advertising and is...