Facebook names first members of oversight board that can overrule Zuckerberg

Facebook’s new content oversight board will include a former head of state, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and several constitutional law experts and rights advocates in its first 20 members, the company announced on Wednesday.

The independent board, which will be able to overturn Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decisions on whether individual pieces of content should be allowed on Facebook and Instagram, is a high-profile response to criticism of how the social media company handles problematic content.

Facebook said the board’s members have lived in 27 countries and speak at least 29 languages, though a quarter of the group and two of the four co-chairs are from the United States, where the company is headquartered.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.