Facebook names 20 who will serve on oversight board

A year and a half after announcing its creation, Facebook has named the initial 20 members of its oversight board, a quasi-independent panel that is to make decisions on thorny issues.

The board’s members were named by Facebook and hail from a broad swath of regions around the world. They include Tawakkol Karman, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Yemen, Alan Rusbridger, the former editor-in-chief of British newspaper The Guardian, and Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former prime minister of Denmark.

The oversight panel is intended to rule on difficult content issues, such as whether Facebook or Instagram posts constitute hate speech. It will be empowered to make binding rulings on whether posts or ads violate the company’s standards. Any other findings it makes will be considered “guidance” by Facebook.

Critics call the oversight board a bid by Facebook to forestall regulation or even an eventual breakup.

reported a first-quarter net loss of $1.84 billion due to a steep decline in car sales triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, and company officials said the impact on the second quarter would be even more severe.

The Italian-American carmaker has withdrawn full-year earnings forecasts due to the volatility of the economic crisis provoked by the virus, which includes stalled production and shuttered dealerships. But it said that an internal stress-test indicates it could survive a 50% reduction in volumes by slashing costs and cash burn.

CEO Mike Manley told analysts that despite the crisis, the terms of a full merger deal with French carmaker PSA Peugeot had not been changed, and that the aim remains to complete it by the end of 2020 or early 2021.