EDITOR'S NOTE: Changed "former head of state" to "former prime minister" in the video description
Facebook on Wednesday named the first members of a new oversight board that will have final say in what content can appear on its sites.
The board's creation comes in response to criticism on how the social media giant handles problematic content.
Nick Clegg is the social network giant's vice president for global affairs and, in a Skype interview with Reuters, described the independent board as first-of-its-kind.
"I hope that any reasonable person will see that this is a genuine, sincere, earnest attempt to do something that has never happened before. This has never been established before. It is an experiment."
Facebook said the first 20 members of the independent board will include a former Danish prime minister, a 2011 Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Yemen, an American constitutional law scholar who testified at President Donald Trump's impeachment hearings, a former official with Israel's Justice Ministry, and a former editor-in-chief of the UK's Guardian newspaper.
Clegg says the board will be able to overturn Facebook's decisions on whether individual pieces of content should be allowed on Facebook and Instagram.
"And clearly, we don't always get that right. That then leads to users saying, hang on a minute, you've taken one of my posts down. A user can then appeal to the company. And if the user feels they haven't got satisfaction from that appeal, they can then take their cases to the oversight board."
The board will oversee controversial cases relating strictly to content and not other areas, such as privacy.
Critics told Reuters the creation of the board is an encouraging step, but the real test would be in how it operates, and how much sway it ultimately has over the content of the site.
