Oversight Board will work towards enhancing, preserving free speech: Sudhir Krishnaswamy

Sudhir Krishnaswamy, who has joined the Oversight Board along with a former Danish prime minister and a Nobel laureate, on Thursday said the organisation will work towards enhancing and preserving free speech and ensure that human rights are upheld as it moderates content for the world's largest social networking platform, Facebook.

Oversight Board is an independent body set up by Facebook, comprising 20 members currently from around the world. It includes former judges, journalists and human rights activists, who will review appeals from users on material that has been taken down from Facebook and Instagram, and make binding content decisions for the social networking platforms.

Krishnaswamy, vice-chancellor of the National Law School of India University in Bengaluru, is the only Indian who is part of the board.

Speaking with PTI, Krishnaswamy said the diversity in constitution of the Board will play an important role in the functioning of the organisation.

"If you see the structure, there are panels throughout, no individual decision makers. So, my role would be to participate in panels, take the cases that come before us and probe them carefully...(members may) have different approaches to free speech, to regulation...When you have multi-member panels, there is a range of perspectives that will go into the decision making process. So, it will not be just one jurisdiction and one view," he said.

The members of Oversight Board come from diverse backgrounds with expertise in areas like digital rights, religious freedom, conflicts between rights, content moderation, digital copyright, internet censorship, platform transparency and civil rights.

Krishnaswamy said nationality will not be a factor when it comes to his role at the Board. He said that while he is the only Indian on the Board so far, that will not affect the cases that are given to him.

"It's not like I decide only India cases, or that on every India case, I sit on the panel," he said adding that all members are independent of Facebook and are not connected with the social media company.

"We want to enhance and preserve free speech, we also want to ensure that the dignity of all human beings is maintained," he said when asked about the focus of the Board.

The Board will begin considering cases later in the year, including hearing appeals from Facebook and Instagram users and cases referred to the board by Facebook for review. In the coming months, it will add the opportunity to review appeals from users who want Facebook to remove content.

The Board can also review content referred to it by Facebook, including many significant types of decisions, including content on Facebook or Instagram, on advertising, or groups. The Board will also be able to make policy recommendations to Facebook based on case decisions. The membership of the Board will be expanded to about 40 people.

Previously, Krishnaswamy was the director of the School of Policy and Governance and Professor of Law and Politics at Azim Premji University, as well as the Dr B R Ambedkar Visiting Professor of Indian Constitutional Law at Columbia Law School. He graduated from the National Law School of India University and, as a Rhodes Scholar, read for a Bachelors of Civil Law and a Doctor of Philosophy (Law) from the University of Oxford.

Krishnaswamy was part of the founding team of the Alternative Law Forum which has evolved radical forms of alternative lawyering rooted in marginalised groups. He is a co-founder of the Centre for Law and Policy Research, which aims to redefine the concept and practice of public interest lawyering in India and ensure that the Constitution works for everyone.