In this coming era of legitimacy we might focus less on theories of rights or studies of concrete harms, and instead emphasize process – the creation of frameworks for adjudicating disputes which can achieve buy-in from all relevant participants. Facebook has already taken a step in this direction with the external review board, a sort of “Supreme Court” which might externalize some of the most important content policy decisions that the platform makes. According to Kadri and Klonick, Facebook already relies on many of the tools used by courts to resolve tensions between regulating harmful speech and preserving free expression. What can we learn from Facebook’s earlier efforts to create a governance system based around user votes? Do these developments bring us closer to early internet proponents’ vision of cyberspace institutions that run by the rule of the people? And what are the promises and pitfalls of Facebook’s other proposed solution to its moderation woes: using algorithms to clean up content?

NOTE: In a conversation with Axios, Kevin Martin, Facebook’s vice president of U.S. public policy (...and former FCC chairman), favorably compared the proposed Facebook External Oversight Board to the Motion Picture Association of America’s system for rating movies or the Financial Industry Regulation Authority, a private organization that supervises the securities industry. How well do these comparisons stack up? Before class, please identify another model of governance from another industry that could inform how platforms ought to moderate content, and come prepared to (briefly and informally) explain this comparison.