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Facebook’s Faces | Harvard Law Review

The case of the suspension of former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts clarified the relationship between Facebook and its Oversight Board. To understand how, we have to appreciate the complexity of Facebook’s relationships with states, publics, and its own staff.

Scholars have offered brilliant, nuanced accounts of social media platforms’ relationships with states and users. This Essay builds on their work and expands their theorization to account for differences among states, the varying influence of different publics, and the complexity and tensions within companies. Theorizing Facebook’s relationships this way includes less influential states and publics that are otherwise obscured, and renders visible the agency and influence of Facebook’s staff.

Facebook engages with states and publics through multiple parallel regulatory conversations, further complicated by the fact that Facebook itself is not a monolith. This Essay argues that Facebook has many faces — different teams working towards different goals, and engaging with different ministries, institutions, scholars, and civil society organizations. It is also internally complicated, with staff whose sympathies and powers vary and can be at odds with each other. Content moderation takes place within this ecosystem. 

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Source: Facebook’s Faces – Harvard Law Review