Facebook Has A Supervisory Board And Indonesians Are Members

Ilustrasi Facebook (Image by William Iven from Pixabay)

JAKARTA - Facebook has just formed a team called the Oversight Board or an independent supervisory board. Later they will be in charge of overseeing content uploaded on Mark Zuckerberg's platform.

Interestingly, there is one Indonesian citizen who was elected to the Facebook Supervisory Board. He is Endy M Bayuni, a senior journalist and former Chief Editor (Pemred) of The Jakarta Post.

Quoted from the oversightboard page, each adult member will moderate the latest content uploaded on Facebook and Instagram. The contents will be reviewed from various aspects and perspectives, including from the value of freedom of expression within the framework of international human rights norms.

Truly honored to be part of this board https://t.co/pqs90KWADJ

- endybayuni (@endybayuni) May 6, 2020

As a Facebook user, Endy admits that Mark Zuckerberg's platform has many benefits. However, the amount of content uploaded also needs to be monitored so that it is balanced and does not deviate from its function as social media.

Summarized from Reuters, Facebook's supervisory board members come from 27 countries around the world. The structure in the Facebook adult is divided into members and four chairmen. Each member of the board will represent a variety of backgrounds and professional, cultural, political and religious perspectives.

Honored to serve on the @OversightBoard for Facebook. We make binding decisions on whether contents in Facebook and Instagram should be removed or allowed to stay, taking into considerations the freedom of expressions and human rights principles.

- endybayuni (@endybayuni) May 6, 2020

The four chairmen of Facebook's Supervisory Board are, former regional federal judge and practitioner of religious freedom in the US, Michael McConnell; jurist Jamal Greene; Colombian lawyer Catalina Botero-Marino, and former Prime Minister of Denmark, Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

Meanwhile, the board members consist of a former judge of the Human Rights court of the European court, András Sajó, executive director of the French association, Julie Owon. Some of them are even activists and journalists.

According to Facebook head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, the appointment of members of the independent supervisory board was based on a variety of backgrounds and professions. They will be asked to make decisions regarding the moderation of various controversial content that Facebook users may make.

Where later, the company can follow up on the recommendation of the supervisory board for controversial content to be removed by Facebook. This includes vetoing or overturning company decisions about which content to allow, even if the decision was made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's one-time founder.

According to the chairman of Facebook's supervisory board, McConnell, this team will not police the internet and ban any content that has been uploaded by netizens. They will only provide recommendations to Facebook to further improve content moderation policies to better respect human rights in using social media.

"We are not internet police, don't think of us as a quick action group that will step in and tackle a fast-moving problem," McConnell said, explaining that board recommendations must be made and implemented within 90 days, on controversial content.

Although not working directly for Facebook, this independent Supervisory Board still receives operational funds of 130 million United States (US) dollars or around Rp. 2 trillion for contracts of at least six years. The independent Board of Trustees will also issue a public annual report on its work in evaluating and moderating content on Facebook.