Facebook’s Oversight Board is going to review Facebook’s decision to deplatform Trump. Here’s what @knightcolumbia submitted to the FOB earlier today. 1/X knightcolumbia.org/documents/subm…
The first part of our argument will be familiar to anyone who has heard us talk about Twitter’s decision to ban Trump. 2/X 
In the second part, we raise some concerns about the FOB’s mandate. 3/X
We argue that the Trump case highlights the problems with the FOB’s mandate especially starkly. 4/X
And we caution the FOB against answering the Trump question on Facebook’s terms. 5/X
Rather than answer the question now, we say, the FOB should insist that Facebook commission an independent study into how its design decisions may have helped create the circumstances that made Trump’s statements on Jan. 6, online and offline, so dangerous. 6/X
Why didn’t we just argue that the FOB’s mandate be expanded to encompass design decisions? Because it seems unlikely to us that Facebook will ever give the FOB authority over decisions that are so central to its business model. 7/X
It’s more realistic, we think, to hope that the FOB can influence Facebook’s design decisions even if it doesn’t have formal authority to review them. 8/X
Looking forward to hearing reactions to all of this. FIN
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