Facebook parent Meta’s Oversight Board said on Wednesday in a blog post that it has renewed a second term of the 17 board members it appointed in 2020, including three co-chairs, beginning April 1. Subsequently, Meta will be withdrawing from the selection process from here on.

“Other members who joined the board later will be eligible for renewal at the end of their first terms. After completing the first terms, Meta is withdrawing from the selection process. Once the ongoing processes for selecting two new board members are complete, the Oversight board will be solely responsible for selecting all future board members,” it said in the post.

According to the post, current member Evelyn Aswad has been appointed co-chair.

“Evelyn was appointed by our existing co-chair Catalina Botero-Marino, Michael McConnell, and Helle Thorning-Schmidt, with support from board members. Meta was not involved in Evelyn’s appointment,” the post read.

The board said Aswad’s expertise in international human rights law, and her work have been vital to its success

The Oversight Board is an independent body that people can appeal to if they disagree with the decisions about content on Facebook or Instagram.

Further, one of the board’s original board members Maina Kiai will step down to focus on other projects and will work until this summer.The board also said that it has agreed upon 26 members as the optimal number for effective decision-making.

“While we originally expected the board to reach 40 members, three years of operations has shown us that, in practice, the optimal number of members allowing for timely, regular, and effective deliberation and decision-making, is 26. For the short run, we have decided that we will operate with 26 members but may change the number of members in the future if we believe it will add operational value,” the post added.

New case for consideration from India

ET reported on September 15 that the Oversight Board was taking up a new case for consideration from India. The board had said it would invite people and organisations to submit public comments.

It further added that it ‘prioritised’ cases that have the potential to affect lots of users worldwide, are of critical importance to public discourse, or raise ‘important’ questions about Meta’s policies.

The case referred to the board by Meta involves a sexual harassment video uploaded on its photo and video-sharing app Instagram.

In December, the board recommended that Meta revamp its system of exempting high-profile users from its rules, saying the practice privileged the powerful and allowed business interests to influence content decisions.

The arrangement, called cross-check, adds a layer of enforcement review for millions of Facebook and Instagram accounts belonging to celebrities, politicians, and other influential users, allowing them extra leeway to post content that violates the company’s policies.

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