Facebook Appoints Kenya’s Maina Kiai to its Global Oversight board

Facebook has appointed Kenyan human rights lawyer to its global oversight committee.

The director of Global Alliances and Partnerships at Human Rights Watch joins the board which has been established in an attempt to ensure free expression is protected when it grinds against Facebook’s terms of service. Said the company’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

The committee, which was announced on Thursday will oversee the “most challenging content issues” for the social media giant.

Part of the board’s role will include making decisions over hate speech, harassment, and users’ privacy on both Facebook and Instagram.

In an article to New York Times, four co-chairs of the committee – Catalina Botero-Marino, Jamal Greene, Michael W. McConnell and Helle Thorning-Schmidt – explained that the oversight board is “independent of Facebook”.

This means the board with act as Facebook’s “Supreme Court” as their decisions will be based on the judgement of the members, rather than those that would be beneficial to the social media giant.

“The Oversight Board will have the power to overturn decisions we’ve made on content as long as they comply with local laws. Its decisions will be final — regardless of whether I or anyone else at the company agrees with them. Facebook won’t have the power to remove any members from the board. This makes the Oversight Board the first of its kind.” Said Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

Members of the board will serve for a maximum of a three 3-year term and case panels will be confidential and assigned at random; no member can choose the panel they sit on, and all opinions will be anonymous.

The board currently has 20 members including “former judges, a former Prime Minister, non-profit leaders, academics and journalists. They come from all over the world and will bring diverse perspectives to these important decisions.” Zuckerberg added. The board is expected to grow up to 40 members.