Forming an “election commission” to oversee a fair and smooth election process, until recently, used to be something exclusively reserved for nation states, but now Facebook is reported to be meddling in that domain, at least semantics-wise.
The New York Times reported that the “commission” could be coming this fall, just in time to affect the way US midterm election campaigns are carried out on the giant platform.
The way these announcements are interpreted currently is that the “election commission” will play a role similar to that the Oversight Board already has in dealing with content censorship on Facebook, only clearly focused on election related content.
The Board is referred to as independent, brings together a number of academics and experts, and is ultimately seen by critics as another way for Facebook to wash its hand off the responsibility in how diverse politically and ideologically sensitive content is treated and “moderated.” Another notorious way is Facebook’s third party “fact checkers.”
Hellbound and Down 