The long-standing supervision board of Facebook is expected to commence hearing cases this summer, with the announcement of board members expected in the near future. Tuesday, the company released a set of suggested rules for the body and new details about how it will be set up. This is when the announcement came out.

Brent Harris, who is in charge of governance at Facebook, says that the process for choosing the board has focused on getting people from all kinds of backgrounds and points of view to serve.

During a call with reporters, Harris said, “Almost everyone on earth might not like one or two people on the board, and we think that is a plus.” “We will let you know when we go live that this is not just a board that looks like Silicon Valley or Facebook.”

Harris said that the company had chosen “a couple of dozen” candidates to become members, but it has not made any public offers yet. Once that board is set up, it will be able to make changes to the suggested laws that Facebook came up with.

Since it was first announced in 2018, Facebook’s review board has been slow to form, in part because the process is politically touchy. The board is an independent group that was created to make Facebook’s toughest moderation decisions. It will have its own business and be funded by a one-time $130 million donation from Facebook.
When a claim is appealed, either by the user or by Facebook itself, the company expects the whole process to be over within 90 days. This will include publishing the board’s decision and Facebook’s policy advice. As an addition to the current Facebook small amounts appeal method, all users will be able to make an appeal to the board.

Most importantly, Facebook might not be able to follow through with every board idea. This is especially true when the board’s choices conflict with local laws or Facebook’s privacy principles for users. But the board has promised to make every decision public, and Facebook has promised to answer in public as well.

According to the law, some choices may lead to new ways for Facebook to enforce the rules, such as automated new ways to enforce the rules for certain types of content.

The bylaws say that each case will be picked by a panel made up of four randomly chosen board members and one person from the area that is most affected. In theory, this could let the board bring more culture awareness to local disputes that are more complicated.

The announcement also included information about the board’s specialized staff, whose job it will be to arrange and organize all the cases. Thomas Hughes, who used to be the head of the digital rights group Post 19, will be in charge of running the board. However, we still do not know who will be on the board itself. They will be chosen by the board of trustees and can be removed if they break the standard process.

But even though Facebook was very involved, the board’s new administrative chief stressed that the board was independent and that its job was to hold the Facebook company accountable.

Hughes said, “The review board was made to make sure that people’s rights are respected and that the neighborhood standards are applied in a responsible and open way.”