Reference no: EM133346084

In May 2021, Facebook's Oversight Board (its independent "Supreme Court") both upheld its Facebook's ban on the former president and criticized Facebook's initial decision to ban Donald Trump as "indeterminate and standardless". It gave Facebook 6 months to come up with clear and non-arbitrary standards that would made transparent its reasoning for banning Trump and do so in a way that is "consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform."

This demand for transparency and consistency has been growing since 2016, when the issue of fake news (literally made up news) and false news (new with falsehoods) began to spread on Facebook for profit or political purposes. Fake and false news have had a powerful negative effect on the 2016 US election and virtually every other election all over the world, since then. Many people demanded that Facebook do something about fake news and false news. Others are concerned that Facebook helps spread hate and intolerance, enables cyber-bullying, and creates social divisions.

While initially rejecting calls for self-censorship and any responsibility for the spread of information through its platform, Facebook then promised to reconsider the issue and have used a variety of tactics in an attempt to do better. These have been controversial and not always transparent. Some have argued that Facebook's actions are politically biased or arbitrary in their application, and that Facebook should ultimately just respect freedom of speech and let people say whatever they want to say as long as its within the law.

To compound this situation, Facebook is a global company that operates in about 200 countries, each with its own legal system. Critics have argued that its policy should be global - that is, it should be principled in a way that would apply not just to the United States, but to any country. Otherwise, its policy would be arbitrary. This doesn't mean that it needs to allow or restrict the exact same things in every country, but rather that its decision of what to allow or restrict everywhere should come from the same principle(s), as the same principle(s) might result in different local decisions depending on the context to which it's applied.

Imagine you are Facebook's CEO and talk to American public explaining and justifying your decision about how your company's principled

approach to this problem:

Present the different moral considerations bearing on your decision and identify the value conflict(s) that make these decisions challenging. (e.g. honesty vs. good outcomes for the world, or safety vs. creativity)