Facebook's accountability bind

Facebook's leaders know they have to demonstrate accountability to the world, but they're determined to do so on their own terms and timetable. Since the 2018 Cambridge Analytica affair, the company has moved to provide more transparency and oversight, but its limited programs often leave journalists and scholars as the de facto whistleblowers for problems on its platform. In August 2021 Facebook shut down the accounts of New York University researchers whose tools for studying political advertising on the social network, the company said, violated its rules. Facebook has become a sort of global public square that's owned and operated by a private company whose decisions can shape political conflicts, cultural controversies and public-health outcomes, yet many of its efforts at accountability — from its reports on content takedowns to its creation of the independent Oversight Board to review content moderation decisions — are slow and retroactive in nature. And when Facebook locks out any agent of accountability, given their scarcity, it leaves the impression it's more focused on limiting PR damage than actually stopping misinformation and manipulation of its platform. It's another manifestation of "see no evil" as a corporate reflex.