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Facebook Oversight Board members’ past statements raise censorship and bias concerns

Several board members have voiced support for censorship and demonstrated left-wing bias.

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Facebook has announced the first 20 members of its Oversight Board – a board that gets to make the final call on whether to delete “controversial” content from the platform.

The Oversight Board operates independently of Facebook and when it was announced last year, many saw it as an attempt by Facebook to show that it’s impartial when making content moderation decisions.

But shortly after these Oversight Board members were announced, commentators and lawyers started raising concerns over the bias and propensity towards censorship of some of the members.

Conservative commentator Mark Dice noted that one of the Oversight Board members, Alan Rusbridger, a former editor of the left-wing newspaper The Guardian, has called for President Trump’s press conferences to be censored for “spreading disinformation.”

Oversight Board member Alan Rushbridger has called for the media to censor President Trump’s live broadcasts (Twitter - @MarkDice, @arusbridger)
Oversight Board member Alan Rushbridger has called for the media to censor President Trump’s live broadcasts (Twitter – @MarkDice, @arusbridger)

Preston Byrne, a partner at the Anderson Kill law firm also raised concerns over another member of the Oversight Board, Helle Throning-Schmidt, who is a former Prime Minister of Denmark for the left-wing Social Democrat party.

Byrne noted that Denmark’s hate speech laws ban speech that is constitutionally protected in the USA.

Preston Byrne raised concerns over Helle Throning-Schmidt being a former Prime Minister of Denmark - a country with strong hate speech laws (Twitter - @prestonjbyrne, @HelleThorning_S)
Preston Byrne raised concerns over Helle Throning-Schmidt being a former Prime Minister of Denmark – a country with strong hate speech laws (Twitter – @prestonjbyrne, @HelleThorning_S)

Dice also documented the left-wing bias of Throning-Schmidt and several other Oversight Board members.

Dice noted that just a few weeks ago, Throning-Schmidt tweeted out praise for former President Obama and wrote “miss the voice of decency and grace.”

Helle Throning-Schmidt recently praised former President Obama (Twitter - @MarkDice, @HelleThorning_S)
Helle Throning-Schmidt recently praised former President Obama (Twitter – @MarkDice, @HelleThorning_S)

In addition to this, Dice highlighted anti-Trump tweets and rants from several of the other Oversight Board members including:

https://twitter.com/markdice/status/1258126433953570816

Nighat Dad tweeted in 2016 that she wouldn’t return to the US if Trump became President (Twitter - @MarkDice, @nighatdad)
Nighat Dad tweeted in 2016 that she wouldn’t return to the US if Trump became President (Twitter – @MarkDice, @nighatdad)
Jamal Greene accused President Trump of aligning himself with “toadies and criminals” (Twitter - @MarkDice, @jamalgreene)
Jamal Greene accused President Trump of aligning himself with “toadies and criminals” (Twitter – @MarkDice, @jamalgreene)

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