It’s not a typical press embargo. This is a PR campaign and they want ivy law schools to cover their board as if it is legitimate legal policy.

The more academics treat the Facebook oversight board as real, the more it becomes real in its consequences. (To borrow a phrase) https://twitter.com/marietjeschaake/status/1354857237257351168

We can even study this roll out like a manipulation campaign and track the timing of certain blogs, tweets, and news articles dropping within minutes of the FB announcement. Embargoes are about the cultivation of opinion makers. That’s not unique.

By following along, we can analyze this tactic of coordinated messaging which engages academia as soft criticism. Facebook has pre-selected the experts it wants to engage with and then the press *picks* (on deadline) experts who seem at a distance from the corporation.

This is the playbook from Big Tobacco and Big Oil. It’s frustrating to see how much effort Facebook has put into academic capture over the last 4 years, selecting certain firms to receive special datasets, holding back when it comes to disclosing takedowns or ad buys.

At the same time, FB has also paid Roku for ads that claim Facebook welcomes regulation.

I wonder if those Roku ads are targeted at DC as a soothing pacifier for the lobbying effort against the Honest Ads Act.

I don’t have anything novel to say about this board that hasn’t been said by @carolecadwalla @MarietjeSchaake and @karaswisher. It’s just capitalism seeking to stall regulation. There’s nothing deep or innovative here and if it doesn’t catch on, fb will shutter it.

Maybe one thing I can add to the discussion is that by making individual pieces of content the object of adjudication, it puts the responsibility on the actors. The board will never be able to make decisions about design, the very mechanisms that make content harmful.