Facebook announced its elite Oversight Board Members last Wednesday.
The Oversight Board will determine what is true and untrue and what will and will not be allowed on Facebook.
The Oversight Board will determine what is true and untrue and what will and will not be allowed on Facebook.
One noteworthy choice on the elite board is Stanford Professor Pamela Karlan.
Many of you may remember Pamela Karlan from the Trump Impeachment hearings in December.
Democrats called in Karlan as a witness not because she knew anything about the Ukraine case but for legal expertise and absolute hatred of President Donald Trump.
During the hearings Karlan took a cheap shot at 13-year-old (at the time) Barron Trump.
“I’ll just give you one example that shows you the difference between him and a king which is, the Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility. So while the President can name is son Barron, he can’t make him a baron,” Karlan angrily exclaimed during an exchange with Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
Following her nasty attack on President Trump’s family Rep. Matt Gaetz delivered a much needed tongue lashing to this horrible “mean” woman.
But that’s not all.
Facebook also put a Muslim Brotherhood figure on their Oversight Board.
Facebook also put a Muslim Brotherhood figure on their Oversight Board.
And now Hungarian Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Relations, Zoltan Kovacs, argues the Facebook Oversight Board is filled with Soros lackeys and the committee will use international speech norms to rule over Americans.
Facebook announced it has created an Oversight Board to help decide what content stays for viewing and what content will be removed from the world’s largest social media site – and it appears to be packed with liberals, including more than one with direct ties to Soros himself.
The news set off alarm bells among free-speech advocates, conservatives, and proponents of causes unpopular among liberals and the left. People in these circles have been vocal for some time about having their content suppressed or outright censored. Many fear that things are about to get worse. Or will they?
The Free Speech Alliance (FSA) came out swinging saying, “This new board will damage Facebook more than it can imagine.” What they then disclosed was even more disturbing.
Of the four co-chairs on this new board, only one could be called conservative – to some, the statement infers. From there, it’s all downhill. A bit of digging reveals many ties to Soros-funded organizations and mouthpieces.
Amongst the other co-chairs are Catalina Botero Marino, a board member of the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, funded by Open Society Foundations. Then there’s former Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who does not believe in salvation (or heaven… or hell) and is unequivocally and vocally anti-Trump. Helle is also CEO of Save the Children International, an organization partnered with Open Society Foundations. She additionally serves as a trustee of the International Crisis Group, a group that George Soros funded originally and one where he and his son Alexander both serve as trustees alongside Helle.
Lastly, among the board chairs, we have a Columbia University professor Jamal Greene. He served as an aide to Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) during Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, when Harris stated that Kavanaugh was a “a direct and fundamental threat” to the Supreme Court’s promise to carry out justice fairly.
These co-chairs apparently then hand-picked the other board members for Facebook’s Oversight Board (how convenient!), who appear to range from left-liberal to far left-liberal. These include Alan Rusbridger, former editor at well-known Soros mouthpiece The Guardian, who has come out in support of outright censorship (of what he disagrees with, of course). In 2015, Rushbridger took up a cushy position at Oxford University and then in 2016 became chair of the school’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, whose board includes Marty Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post, and which is partnered with the European Journalism Observatory, which also lists — you guessed it — Open Society Foundation as a contributor.
Wait, there are more. This new, objective board will also include:
- A program manager at the Open Society Initiative for West Africa
- A judge at the European Court of Human Rights and founding dean of Legal Studies at Soros’ Central European University
- A former head of Article 19, an organization that focuses on the defense of freedom of expression, generously funded by the Open Society Foundation.
That former head of Article 19, the Soros beneficiary, is now in a position to protect “free expression” for those he deems worthy at the helm of the world’s largest social media platform.
This is not the first time left-wing media companies have taken it upon themselves to censor what they do not like. And it’s not the first time we’ve heard that those with a clearly liberal bias are in bed with Facebook.
Arvato, a subsidiary of left-wing media giant Bertelsmann, has long been in charge of censoring Facebook posts and ad campaigns. Mind you, Bertelsmann also owns RTL Group, a media entity known for its critical coverage of the Hungarian government and its pro-migration stance. Prior to the 2018 Hungarian parliamentary elections, Facebook content that was embarrassing to the opposition was taken down and pro-government campaigns were blocked.
So we’ve already seen the censorship of content, but the establishment of this board to have supposedly far-reaching decision-making authority with such an imbalanced, left-leaning composition takes matters to a new, troubling level.
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