Ten thoughts on today's decisions by the Facebook Oversight Board:
1. The Oversight Board is actually up and running and functional. This was not a forgone conclusion. Whatever its decisions, it is the beginning of an experiment that will affect the future of speech on line.

2.The results in these decisions are less important than the signals/precedent set for how the board will operate, how it considers its jurisdiction, what info about FB and its posts will be revealed in the decisions, and how ambitious the Board will be in checking Facebook.
3.The absence of signed opinions, the noting of minority views but not extensive dissents, the significant use of experts, the willingness to issue advisory opinions on policy – all are precedent setting as to how the Board (and public) will view its role.
4The considerable reliance on international human rights standards gives us a sense of the body of law that will govern. Not a foregone conclusion & is bound to trigger some conservative reaction in the US as int'l standards are not as speech protective as the 1st Amendment.
5.However, the fact that the Oversight Board overturned four of the five takedowns gives us a sense that it is likely to take more libertarian and speech-protective positions than Facebook.
6.This is not where most public opinion is, of course. Whether in the U.S. or the world, most observers think the problem with FB is that it takes down too little speech, not too much.
7.For those who thought the Board would necessarily be a PR win for FB – I am not so sure. It shows some source of outside accountability, but if it tends to return controversial speech to the platform, observers will continue to criticize FB for it.
8. The most significant decision, I think, is the French case dealing with COVID and hydroxychloroquine. It also has potential implications for the Trump takedown because it combines disinformation with the threat of offline harm.
It reflects the challenges in implementing Board decisions or complex context-based rules during situations where the real world costs of underenforcement exceed the speech costs of overenforcement. Should FB be more permissive in leaving up borderline science during a pandemic?
https://t.co/QXZqvnnZTm of the most important remaining questions is how these decisions will lead, if at all, to changes in content moderation “at scale” and whether the care taken by the Board is something that can be implemented to a billion pieces of content every day. /end
Bonus tweet -- these 5 cases are from a pool of 150,000 filed appeals. The case selection process will be one of the most important aspects of the Board's work, given that they can only weigh in on a tiny sliver of Facebook decisions. But it's a start!

More from For later read

There is some valuable analysis in this report, but on the defense front this report is deeply flawed. There are other sections of value in report but, candidly, I don't think it helps us think through critical question of Taiwan defense issues in clear & well-grounded way. 1/


Normally as it might seem churlish to be so critical, but @cfr is so high-profile & the co-authors so distinguished I think it’s key to be clear. If not, people - including in Beijing - could get the wrong idea & this report could do real harm if influential on defense issues. 2/

BLUF: The defense discussion in this report does not engage at the depth needed to add to this critical debate. Accordingly conclusions in report are ill-founded - & in key parts harmful/misleading, esp that US shldnt be prepared defend Taiwan directly (alongside own efforts). 3/

The root of the problem is that report doesn't engage w the real debate on TWN defense issues or, frankly, the facts as knowable in public. Perhaps the most direct proof of this: The citations. There is nothing in the citations to @DeptofDefense China Military Power Report...4/

Nor to vast majority of leading informed sources on this like Ochmanek, the @RANDCorporation Scorecard, @CNAS, etc. This is esp salient b/c co-authors by their own admission have v little insight into contemporary military issues. & both last served in govt in Bush 43. 5/
the whole point of Dunks was you could go cop them at VIM whenever you wanted for $65. this shit is like having to enter a raffle to buy milk.


like seriously why not make a ton more of them if they're gonna be so sought-after? they land at outlets? so? nike still makes money off that.

the only reason to keep making them so limited is that they KNOW all that matters is the profit on the flip and if they were readily available FEWER people would want them, not more

the whole system is super broken, but it's just gonna go the way it goes, because at this point it all caters to the secondary market. the only reason Nike can sell Jordan 1s for $200 is because the people buying them can flip them for $500

adjusted for inflation, a $65 AJ1 in 1985 is like $160—and modern-day AJ1s are made from cheaper materials in factories staffed by cheaper workers. they don't HAVE to be $200 retail. but the secondary market nuked the whole concept of what sneakers are "worth"

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