11-16, 10:30–11:00 (Asia/Beirut), Spaceship 001
The Oversight Board was created to help Meta answer some of the most difficult questions around freedom of expression: what to take down, what to leave up, and why. In October 2020, this group of independent experts started accepting cases. They analyze moderation decisions by looking to international human rights laws and principles. Two years on, they have issued decisions on the most challenging issues facing Facebook and Instagram - from the conflicts in Ethiopia and Israel/Palestine to COVID-19 misinformation and the suspension of President Trump. This panel will explore what has worked and ways to improve.
The Oversight Board was created to help Meta answer some of the most difficult questions around freedom of expression: what to take down, what to leave up, and why. In October 2020, this group of independent experts started accepting cases. They analyze moderation decisions by looking to international human rights laws and principles. Two years on, they have issued decisions on the most challenging issues facing Facebook and Instagram - from the conflicts in Ethiopia and Israel/Palestine to COVID-19 misinformation and the suspension of President Trump. This 30-minute fireside conversation will explore what has worked and ways to improve, especially in the MENA region.
During the session, Oversight Board member, Khaled Mansour - an Egyptian-born writer communications specialist and former humanitarian aid professional – will discuss his experience of the Board since joining in May of this year. In a fire-side conversation with Mona Shtaya of 7amleh, the pair will explore some of challenges of global content moderation, and in particular the challenges facing the MENA region. They will hone in on efforts to hold Meta to account and increase transparency within the organisation, including the ramifications of a recent independent human rights review into content moderation practices at Meta during the escalation in violence in Israel/Palestine in May 2021.
Mona Shtaya is a Palestinian digital rights defender working in the MENA region. She is working as an Advocacy Advisor at 7amleh- The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, and a non-resident scholar for the Middle East Institute (MEI) in the Cyber Security and Emerging Technology Program and in the Palestine-Israel program. Mona holds MA in Social Media and Digital Communication from the University of Westminster. She previously worked as the community outreach specialist and Social Media Specialist at Transparency Palestine, the national chapter of Transparency International.
Khaled Mansour is a writer and communication expert with many years of experience at the United Nations and as a foreign correspondent. He has worked and written on political issues, human rights, humanitarian aid, and peacekeeping in addition to his fiction work. As a journalist and then a UN spokesperson, he worked for years in conflict and transitional situations such as in South Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Sudan in addition to his work on US politics in Washington DC in the 1990s and at the UN headquarters in New York. Before he became a full-time writer in 2015, he was the Executive Director of Egypt's leading human rights organization, EIPR (2013-2014). He published seven books, mostly in Arabic. His debut novel, “A Minefield” and his memoirs on Afghanistan, “From Taliban to Taliban” appeared in Arabic in early 2022. He joined META Oversight Board in 2022 and keeps a blog at khaledmansour.org