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Facebook Oversight Board open for business, the appeals of content removed from Facebook and Instagram

Facebook's independent appeals court is officially open.

The Facebook Oversight Board, made up of 20 international experts, will begin assessing cases from Facebook and Instagram users who argue their content has been wrongly removed from those social media platforms.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially promoted the idea of an oversight board in November 2018 to serve as a double-check on the social networks' own moderation processes. The independent board's decisions will be binding upon the company's sites.

"The oversight board is the first institution of its kind and has been empowered to make decisions that could potentially impact millions or even billions of Facebook and Instagram users around the world," said Thomas Hughes, director of Oversight Board Administration, on Thursday during an announcement of the board's opening.

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When Facebook and Instagram users have content removed from the networks, they can first appeal to the respective platform. But Facebook wanted to create an independent body for users to subsequently appeal decisions made by its human and artificial intelligence moderation methods.

Facebook, which invested $130 million to underwrite the board, announced the first 20 board members in May. They include Tawakkol Karman, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Yemen, former federal Judge Michael McConnell and constitutional law expert Jamal Greene, who is the board's co-chairman.

The ability to appeal decisions made by Facebook and Instagram – and eventually appeal other users' content left on one of the platforms – is "a significant step forward for free expression and for human rights for Facebook and Instagram users around the world," Greene said.

The ability for people to appeal to the board about content they want removed will become available "over the following months," the board said.

Because of the expected load of cases, the board won't be able to take every appeal or case sent to it, he said. "We want our decisions to be influential and have impact beyond a single case," Greene said. "We will therefore prioritize cases that have the potential to impact many users or are of critical importance to public discourse or raise important questions about Facebook’s policies."

Board members have been working through mock cases in advance of the board's opening and Facebook has begun selecting cases to refer to the board. (In addition to accepting user appeals, the board will also get such referrals from Facebook.)

"We have looked at various types of cases. That could be hate speech, that could be cases around nudity," said Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the board's co-chairman and Denmark’s first female Prime Minister. "So we have practiced many of these part of the community standards where we expect cases will come. And obviously there we will also something around fact-checking, which is a big concern for the oversight board which we would expect to go into."

Facebook and Instagram users who appeal content removal and have their appeals rejected by the sites will get a reference ID, which they can use to appeal to the oversight board within 15 days.

Access to the board's functions will begin rolling out globally to users today and will be complete in the coming weeks, said Brent Harris, Facebook's director of governance and global affairs.

Facebook designed case management tools for the board to protect the privacy of user data during the appeal process. "Facebook is committed to enforcing the board’s decisions on individual pieces of content and to carefully considering and transparently responding to any policy recommendations," Harris said.

But some wonder whether Facebook will truly allow the board to act independently. The “Real Facebook Oversight Board,” an initiative founded in September, came together because Facebook's independent organization "would not be operational in time to have any impact on Facebook's pivotal role in the US election," the group said in a statement sent to USA TODAY. "We believe the US election is an emergency situation and this the Real Facebook Oversight Board an emergency initiative."

The Facebook board has 90 days to make a decision and an expedited review could take a month, the group says. "Given that the Hunter Biden story was viewed by millions of people within the first 24 hours, it's hard to see quite how this is how going to work in any 'emergency' situation but we are crossing our fingers because, in the absence of real accountability, that's all we can do'."

Last week, Facebook and Twitter took actions to tamper down the spread of a New York Post story citing unverified emails from Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son that were reportedly discovered by President Donald Trump’s allies.

The "Real Oversight Board" is an initiative from Citizens, a nonprofit created with start-up funding from Luminate which is backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's foundation The Omidyar Group.

When asked about the "Real Facebook Oversight Board," co-chair Thorning-Schmidt said she welcomed any additional debate the other group might contribute. "We want debate around content moderation and content decisions and we also expect with our transparency that is exactly what will be created," she said.

Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Facebook and Instagram oversight board to hear content removal appeals