According to The New York Times, Facebook wants to establish a separate advisory committee to make policy-related decisions. According to reports, the company has approached several academics and policy experts interested in creating the advisory committee. This could provide cover for some of the most important decisions.
According to the Times, the group would be referred to as a commission and could potentially have the power to address issues such as election misinformation or political advertising, two of Facebook's most pressing policy problems. According to Facebook, the commission will be established for the U.S. midterm elections in 2022. It could even be announced as early as this fall.
Facebook's election commission could be modelled after the Oversight Board which was the first company to experiment with quasi-independent, external decision-making. Although the Oversight Board started reviewing cases in October last year, it didn't have the capacity to respond quickly enough to the flood of election misinformation flooding the platform during the U.S. Presidential election. The board was limited to making policy decisions based only on material already removed from Facebook.
Facebook touts the independence and independence of the Oversight Board. However, the group was created by Facebook and its original four co-chairs were appointed. Although the Oversight Board can set policy precedents and make binding per case moderation rulings for each case, its ultimate authority is Facebook, which could at any time ignore the board's decisions.
Facebook would find it very useful to have an equivalent external policy-setting body that focuses on elections. Both Republicans and Democrats are frequent targets of the company, with the former alleging that Facebook censors conservatives in adisproportionate manner and the latter pointing out Facebook's long history as a source of conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Both sides were unhappy when Facebook suspended political advertising following the election. This was a move that did not address the rapid spread of misinformation. Facebook requested the Oversight Board for a review of its decision to suspend Trump. However, the board eventually returned its most controversial case to Facebook.
