Facebook ‘Supreme Court’ Empowered to Demand More Censorship

The Facebook oversight board, commonly known as the “Facebook supreme court,” which was established by the social network as a quasi-independent body to hear appeals on Facebook’s decision to censor or ban content, has now been empowered to demand more censorship from Mark Zuckerberg’s platform.

Breitbart News has previously reported on the fact that the Oversight Board is packed with left-wingers, including the former editor of the left-wing Guardian newspaper and the former leader of a left-wing political party in Denmark.

The politically slanted nature of the board drew condemnation from mainstream conservatives in both the U.S. and overseas.

The Board was initially empowered only to hear cases in which users felt their content had been unfairly censored or banned by the platform. Now Facebook is empowering the board to hear cases in which users feel “harmful content” should have been taken down but hasn’t.

Via AP:

The board said it will accept cases from users who object to content posted by others and who have already exhausted Facebook’s appeals process.

Until now, users could only appeal to the Oversight Board when their own content was taken down by Facebook. The company is able to refer cases on its own to the board.

“Enabling users to appeal content they want to see removed from Facebook is a significant expansion of the Oversight Board’s capabilities,” Thomas Hughes, director of the Oversight Board Administration, said in a statement.