Facebook Is Building An Oversight Board. Can That Fix Its Problems?

The new, independent group will review controversial choices made by content moderators

Photographer: Johannes Berg/Bloomberg
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On a recent Wednesday afternoon in late May, roughly 30 Facebook Inc. employees gathered at the company’s Menlo Park, California, headquarters to talk about sexual harassment.

The group was there to consider a single, controversial Facebook post: an unsubstantiated list of more than 70 academics accused of predatory behavior, which also encouraged people to submit more “sexual harassers” to the list. The Facebook employees were asked to decide: Should the post remain up?