Deplatforming Trump

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hi everybodyhi my name is vivian schiller and i amthe executive director of aspen digitalwe are coming to you via this soon butalso on youtubeon cnn live stream and yahoo fannin’slive streamwe’re so glad to have you with us forthis first public programwith members of the facebook oversightboard on the dayafter the historic decision on theremoval of donald jtrump from facebook’s platformsif you’re with us now i am sure you areaware of the context that the presidentwas suspended from facebookafter posting encouragement and supportto the insurrectionistswho were storming congress as they weregetting ready to count and certifythe 2020 electoral votes which is aconstitutionally mandated processfive people died and many others wereinjured as a resultafter first temporarily suspending thepresident facebook then declared thesuspensionindefinite make note of that word we’regoing to come back to it laterand then turn the case over to thefacebook oversight boardasking the body to assess whether itmade the right decisionand asking them also generally theirviews about the suspensionswhen the user is a significant politicalleaderas you know but as a reminder thefacebook oversight boardwas originated and funded by facebookbut is now set up as an independentirrevocable trustseparate from facebook uh it is uh it isset up to make binding decisions ontakedownsthat are uh sent to it for appeal andmore recently that mandate has expandedto posts that are up if there’s aquestion about whether that post shouldcome downyesterday the facebook oversight boardcame out with its very highlyanticipated decisionuh to say the least uh the oversightboard ruled touphold the suspension but they referredthe case back to facebookdemanding clarification and giving themsix months to do soi’ll say no more as i want the membersto speak for themselvesso they will be up in just a second butfirst a quick bit of housekeepingwe’re going to take questions from youthe audience during the last half ofthis programto ask a question at any point you cando so now during the programum those on zoom can submit yourquestion using the qa button at the bottom of the screen ifyou are watching on live streamyou can email us at aspen digitalat aspen institute dot org that’s aspendigital at aspeninstitute.orgplease include your name and affiliationif you feel comfortable doing so as thatcan providehelpful context but it’s not mandatory adisclosureaspen digital receives funding fromfacebooknot the oversight board facebook properbut we have not worked with facebookin any way on this program in fact theylearn the details of the programalongside the public we maintainmaintainfull editorial control over this and allour otherprogramming at all times i said allshould note that we invitedsomeone from facebook to join thisprogramto respond to the oversight boarddecisions and the comments that will bemade on this programbut they have declined okay let’s getstarted we’re going to dostart first with the facebook oversightmembers we have four of them let memention who they are quicklyjamal green is co-chair of the oversightboard and professor of law at columbialaw schoolhis scholarship focuses onconstitutional rights adjudicationas well as the structure of legal andconstitutional argumentronaldo lamos is a lawyer specializingin technology intellectual propertymediaand public policy he has a partner witha leading law firm in brazil and has 20years of experiencein the private and public sectors julieawanois executive director of internet songfrontieran organization which defends digitalrights and access to the internet she isalso a fellow at the berkman kleincenterfor internet and society at harvard andfinally johnsamples is vice president at the catoinstitutehe founded and now directs cato’s centerfor representative governmentwhich studies freedom of speech thefirst amendment and other aspects ofamerican politicalinstitutions so welcome to all of youand uh wei will begin with my first questionjamal to youas one of the co-chairs of the facebookoversight boardthe facebook oversight board upheldthe suspension for now but your rulingstrikes me at least as more proceduralthan principles you effectivelytoss this back to facebook so thequestion is why not proposethe very standards that you’re askingfacebook to come up with why notuh propose those yourselvessure thanks for the question and thanksto all of you for engaginghere the first thing i’ll say is just asaby way of kind of um disclaimer andadditional information i think it’sit’ll be important for people to readthe opinion itself and not just rely onwhatever we say about it we want to makesure that our opinions do speak forthemselvesuh but uh but it’s i think it’s alsogood to of courseprovide some additional context uh toyour questionvivian i don’t know that i would maybethis is a lawyer’s answer but i don’t iwouldn’tum i wouldn’t say there’s a binarybetweenum procedural and principles i think aprocedureum is an important part of legaldecision makingum the question ofwhy not uh apply uhwhy not apply the standards that theboard wants facebook to apply directlywell that has something to do with themandate of the board and the role thatit plays visa the facebook the board’sjobis to make sure that facebook is doingits job umand its job means um making decisionsaccording to its rulesmaking decisions that are in compliancewith its values making decisions thatare in compliance withthe international human rights normsthat facebook is committedto applying and the board’s job is notto make decisions about users in thefirst instancefacebook has a responsibility to itsusers into its community and to thebroader public um to make its owndecisionsum and come up with its own proceduresas aas a company and our job is to reviewthem and to make sure that they’rei’m consistent and compliant with umwith other norms soum so i that’s the that’s the short ofit um which isto say that it is it isprocedural in in a sense um i’ll saythatas someone who studies free expressionandas a u.s scholar studies the firstamendment one of the things thatis very important in first amendment lawand also important in internationalhuman rights lawis that decisions be made be made inways that are not arbitrarythat’s part of the substantive law thatwe applyin free expression law and so that’spart of our mandate is to make sure thatdecisions are made consistentlyit’s not to in the first instance decideum what sanctions to apply to particularusersso would you um when you sent it backto facebook you basically and you cancorrect me if i’ve got this wrongyou’ve basically given them six monthsto come up with those standardswhat happens at the end of those sixmonthsat the end of the six months well itdoesn’t have to be six months it’s thefirst thing to sayso facebook could um could decide morequickly than thatbut our expectation is that facebook umlistens to what the board says um it’scommitted to doing souh and uh it has so far you knowit’s it has complied with the board’sinstructions in previous casesand we expect it to live up to itscommitment so at the end of six monthsfacebook will make adecision about a particular sanction andandwe’ll we’ll see what happens from thereand are they bound to dowhat you asked i know that decisionsabout takedowns and leave ups areare binding is your is what you ask forthem tobasically examine their their uh examinetheir rules and come up with theseuh these clarifications are they boundby that alan russbridger i noticedmentionedthat they were bound by it in his uhpeace in the guardian this morningwell facebook um put a question to theoversight board and said that they wouldum abide by what the oversight boardsaid in response to that question thequestion waswhether facebook uh whether facebook’sindefinite suspensionof donald trump uh was something that itshould keep in placenow our answer to that question isis no um if they need a different kindofuh a different kind of penalty eitherum one of their existing penalties whichis either take down contentor have a specified time period ordelete the account if necessaryuh and so that’s what they’ve that’swhat they need to you know we’ve saidthatthat that their pen their currentpenalty is not adequate and they need todo something different and soum since they’ve committed in the waythey’ve committed to our other decisionsto abide by what we saythat’s the expectation julie uh let meturn to youum you know there were so many responsesacross the board to the decisionyesterdayum i i to say that there was noconsistency is thatis the understatement of the year butthere were many people who weredisappointedum saying you a lot of people praised uhpraise the decisionand and and and your uh and the way thatyou framed itbut others were disappointed saying youabdicated your responsibility by sendingit back to facebook margaretsullivan the washington post columnistcalled the board quote a high-pricedfig leaf meant to avoid realaccountabilityum joan donovan said that facebook paidtens of million dollars for anon-decision is the way she put itbecause the facebook oversight board uhpunted the trump decision backback to them now i know these criticismsare largely directed atfacebook not so much the boardnecessarilybut do you think that is a fairassessment and if not whyi think that those who arecriticizing facebook for its lack ofaccountabilityand those who are concerned with thehuge powerthat the company and particularly itsceohas on our discourse online shouldactuallypraise a decision that on the one handrecognizes the exceptionaluh events that happened earlier thisyear on january the 6thand uh but also refuses to endorsean arbitrary decision the arbitraryis exactly uh what we don’t want apowerfulcompany like facebook to uh to to getinvolved inum that said uh i don’t necessarilyagree that there was no decisioni think there was uh if you read theopinionuh you will see that the fate that theboardhas put out clear guidelines fora company like facebook on how it shouldapply international human rightsstandardswhen faced with potential violations bypowerful and influential usersuh they will see that uh i mean thosewho will read the decision we alsosee that we are saying that all usersmatter on the platformand that it’s not because you’re a headof state that you havemore rights to basically spew hatefake or and violate community standardsfreely on thein the name of newsworthiness forinstance on the contrary what we’redoing in that decision is uh toremind facebook that it hasresponsibilityto protect public safety and it shoulddo souh in in a way that’s respectful ofinternational human rights and we’realsotelling influential users politicalleadersnot only that they have a responsibilityto promote peaceful messages toprotect public safety given the theaudience that that they haveand that’s what we did by uh callinguponuh the un rabbit plan of action whichwas uh you know adopted touh to infor well to protect publicsafety againstdiscrimination against hate and so manyso many wrong thingsso what i also want to say and thatprobably we haven’t insisted that muchin the public conversation so far aboutthe decision is thatfirst first of all it’s the first timethatthe company has accepted has provided athorhistory of an account or a page behavioron its platform and this is extremelyimportant because what have we learnedwe have learned thatfacebook has had to take actions fivetimes alreadyon the account of the the formerpresident uh we have also learned thatthe company says it has never appliedthe newsworthiness exception whichbasically means thatthey they think the the contentpublished bypolitical leaders is important forpolitical debate and public debate andtherefore should be left upuh we have learned that they haven’tdone so in the case of of trumpuh what we also think is important torememberwith the decision is that the boarddoesn’t shy away from askingvery tough questions we’ve seen that uhwe have asked 46 questions to thecompany and the company has refused toanswernine of them two partially and sevencompletelyand the ones that the company refused toanswer to are precisely related towhat happened before january the sixthwhat was the contextbefore january the sixth and ourdecision says thatsays that you cannot make such animportant decisionthat’s such a serious decision forfreedom of expression freedom of speechwithout the adequate context i thinkthis is important to rememberespecially when we when we criticizedthe decisionlet’s stick with those those 46questions for a minute i’m going to turnovernow to you uh ronaldo as you as as juliementioned the 46 questions umfacebook declined to answer some of themincluding what happened beforebut it it’s it strikes me and you cancorrect me if i’ve got this wrong thattheuh that they also refuse to answerquestions about sort of the scope andthe reachof of uh the posts trump’s posts andothersone of the recommendations in your um inthe document you published yesterdayreads as follows it says this should bean open this is your what you’re sayingto facebookthis should be an open reflection on thedesign and policy choicesthat facebook has made that may enableits platform to beabused excuse me uh is that not reallyjust sort of poeticlanguage for um wanting them to addressthe underlyingalgorithms uh that impact the reach andscope of messageslike trump and how can the board can canthe boardcompel facebook to answer questions thatget to its underlyingtechnology do you have that oversightand if not how can youcure the disease if it’s if you’re notallowed to consider the symptomsthank you vivian those are all veryimportant questionsand of course a lot of people that lookto the oversight boardand basically uh have criticismregardingits structure and our work actuallydemandthat the board could have more powers somore powers to enable rules more powersto basically interferewith facebook’s activities so that is atypicaltype of criticism that we hear all thetime and some of the articles that youjust mentionedi think they go in precisely in thatdirection butthe the limited powers that theoversight boardhave over facebook they are actuallyquite a lotso our effective powers are to decidewhether a specificpiece of content should be left up ortaken down and the reasons forthat decision to be made and i thinklike uhin this particular case you can seealreadyhow that is actually an exercise ofpower that can lead tochange in regards to facebook sobasicallyuh when we ask those questions aboutalgorithms and howfacebook actually prioritize content orsometimes evensuper spread misinformationthis is precisely in the path of changeeven if it’s within the limited powersthat the oversight boardhas so that conversation has startedthat conversation is of course in thepublic eyeright now that conversation is insidethe boardof course and of course we take thesecontextsand we take these uh elements in everydecision that the board makesso uh for those who would like the theoversight board to havean immediate and effective impact ithinkyou can see that already happening andthis decision is very clearso just to recap a little bit of some ofthe points that jamalasked if you can sum up what the boardhas decidedin this particular case in oneshort sentence that would be we areasking facebookwe are first up holding facebookdecisions on january 7ththat was a correct decision but we arealso asking facebook that withinsix months it comes up with veryclear rules in regards for instance toinfluential users and not only come upwith those rulesbut apply those rules to everyoneonce they are uh defined so that is theaskof this particular board and for thosewho are looking into changei think that is a very important ask fora company like facebook andwe as julie mentioned expect thatfacebook keepsits track of respecting and applying theboys decisionsand in six months if that happens and wehope it willthat is change and i think that changesis verypositive have you heard uh from anybodyat facebook in response to yourum what you put out yesterday well uhwe’ve heard from the the publicannouncement of nick cleggin which he he welcomed the work thatthe board hasbeen doing and uh it was a very positiveresponse so far so the position of nickclegg the one that ii saw personally i think it was a verypositive response uh to what we havedecidedbefore i let you go and go to johnthough i just want to come back one moretime to the technology because iunderstandum what you’re asking of facebook you’reasking them to toto clarify just to summarize you put itvery wellto be much clearer about about theirrules umabout the penalty so that it doesn’t uhso that these decisionsyou know don’t feel and and they’re notarbitrary but do you but do you thinkyou can effectively doyour work and effectively make informeddecisionswithout understanding not just the thestated terms of service and the ruleswhichabsolutely are important but the naturethe means by which uh posts on facebookum whether they’re from a donald trumpor or a less famous userhow those uh travel how they aretargetedhow much reach they have do you feellike you can really effectivelyfulfill your role without addressingthose issuesthat’s still for you ronaldo ohsorry i thought you were asking john i’msorry i’m sorryi i i don’t love can you please reviewyeah yeahi just want to stick with the technologybecause i know that’s your particulararea of expertisethat’s why i’m asking which is um do youthink you canuh without understanding the underlyingum technology and the algorithmicallytargeteduh uh means by which messages are spreadand targeted and their reach do youthink you it’s it’s great that you’reasking demanding these rules and that’sall fine but do you think you can reallyeffectivelyuh do your job as an oversight boardwithoutunderstanding and without asking forclarification or gettingunder the hood of how facebookeffectively operatesabsolutely vivian and this is uh one ofmypersonal concerns and it’s definitelysomething that ii’ve been paying attention to since i itook my position in the boardand that is a very important question tobe askedand of course betting has a deepimplications for every decisionthat the board makes as well because uhcontext here matters so when you lookinto the robot planone of the key elements for makingdecisions is precisely to considercontextand of course technology here is part ofthat contextso if you look into a certain piece ofcontentand you realize that that piece ofcontent ispart of a massive disinformationcampaignsometimes very well funded that exploitsfor instancespecific responses that an algorithmuh has in regards to content of coursethat matters that is not your typicalcitizen exercising uhyou know a regular free speechbut that might might imply for instancedeceptionbecause that might be uh a piece ofcontent thatdoesn’t show you exactly what is goingonin terms of uh how that contentinteractswith the algorithms so context isfundamental here and you can expectthat the oversight board will keepasking those questionsand we’ll keep looking into what is thecontext that technologyand algorithms provide and in mypersonal view of course i don’tuh intend here to represent uh the wholeboard it’s my personal opinionthese are some of the fundamentalquestions that have to be askedand they will continue to be asked atleast by methank you ronaldo um john temples let melet me turn to youyou know it was it was sort ofremarkable i think probably for all ofyou as well i don’t know that you couldhave anticipated uhthe kind of like frenzy waiting for thedecision come down and the frenzy whenit came down and everybody reading thisyou know reading your report andresponding to it in real time ironicallynot on facebook so much but on twitteruh it was you know it harkens back tojournalists standing outside the supremecourtuh you know waiting waiting to report ona finding or waiting for white smoke tocome from the vaticanbut the fact is you know the facebookoversight board is not a supreme courtand this isn’t a legal process this is aa business decision it’s a businessprocesseffectively so what do you say to thosewho claim that facebook is trying tosort of put a legal gloss over the wholething when it actually in the end of thedaycomes back to the decisions of facebookas a company and ultimate to oneultimately to one man mark zuckerbergwell i think it’s interesting the entiresetup ofthe oversight board and its relationshipto facebookif you look at the face the oversightboard’s charterits bylaws all of which areavailable publicly you can google itwhat you see is that ourresponsibilities are not to the businesssideof facebook our responsibilities arelaid out fairly clearly towe’re supposed to judge facebook’scontent moderationby facebook values by its communitystandardswhich was relevant yesterday and alsoby enter what i would call internationalhuman rights normsuh so in that sense you havefacebook has taken the chance i think topoint a board to help them with thecontent moderation to give somelegitimacy to content moderationbut it is not uh set out a board that isuh you know has any businessresponsibilities we’re notthere to maximize shareholder valuewe’re not given that chargeum you know you you and and julie bothum have mentioneduh over the course of the last fewminutes um aboutuh international human rights law so iwant tocome back to that i’m going to ask onemore question then i want to bring inanotherour other guest i’ll i’ll maybe we’llturn to jamal for this one as ourresident constitutional uh uh uhexpert here uh but you know you youryour talking points all lean veryheavily on international human rightslaws of justification and thathuman rights law probably as a as itgenerally is read as a preference forallowing speechuh but there’s also a responsibility toprotectthe public from harms and we know umin particular around trump’s speech thatitin particular underrepresentedcommunities have been particularlyharmed bytrump’s speech which then you know flowsfrom him to his followers andhas been as we’ve seen can then flowinto the real world so can you explainhowthat consideration and how human rightslawguided your decision here and whyso let me just firstpush back just a little bit on thepremise thatfree expression is not as protectedunder international human rights lawi think that i think this is the subjectof somesome disagreement among scholars rightbuti think americans who are familiar withfirst amendment lawoften sort of assign to anythingforeign like the non-protection ofspeechum and i think that’s not uman accurate reflection of human rightslaw when it comes to free expression soarticle 19um which is the most directly relevantumresource in international human rightslaw is quite speech protectiveand only allows limitations on speechunder very specific circumstancesthe first amendment uh is also quitespeech protective and but also allowssome limitations on speechunder specific circumstances um when itcomes to marginalized communities andhow thatinflu had an influence here if when youwhen when you read the opinionfor those of you who haven’t um there issome discussionof a minority view and minority just inthe numerical senseuh on the on the board uh that wantedthe opinion to say more aboutthe dignitary harm that former presidenttrumphas inflicted onmembers of minority communities overtime it’s a minority position notbecause the boardnecessarily took a position or rejectedthatum but because the board did not themajority of the board did not see thatasnecessary to the decision that that kindof discussion is necessaryto the decision the decision was takenon the basis of uh actionsthat were profoundly anti-democraticand that the attack on the the capitalwas an attack on us all um uh andso that was sufficient um for facebookto make the decision it made and thatwas the board’sum decision and and again just goingback tothe role of international human rightslaw there part of the reason the board’smandate is tofocus on international human rights lawis because facebook is awell while it’s situated in umin northern california it is a companywhose usersare around the world it has almost threebillion usersaround the world only a small minorityof whom are americanand so the standards have to bestandards that apply um everywhereuh and that that that that the article19 andof the the robot plan of action weretaken into considerationin deciding um uh how muchum uh what the what the particular harmof the speech that issue might have beenhere and how much it could be limitedokay i want to bring on now um our twoother guests who are who are joining usand just as a reminder to everybodywe’re going to get to your questionsvery soonso please continue to drop them um intotheuh into the into the q a sectionor again um if you’re not on the zoomyou can email usat aspen digital one wordat aspen institute i know that’s amouthful but aspendigital at aspen institute dot orgso i now want to uh welcome um uh twomore of our panelists uh we have with usuh faiza patel she is co-director of thebrennancenter’s uh liberty and nationalsecurity program she is aa well-recognized expert on issues ofnational security andcounterterrorism and has contributed tomedia outlets from the new york times tothe post the economist the guardianum al jazeera npr and so on we also havewith ushenry olsen he is the washington postcolumnist and senior fellowat the ethics and public policy centerhe previously served as president of thecommonwealth foundationum and uh and was uh vice presidentdirector nationalresearch initiative at the americanenterprise instituteum so henry i’m going to start with youum you wrote an op-ed one of the reasonswe were looking forward to having you onis you wrote an app ed a while back umthat trump should be let backon the platform you made the case forthat in the washington post i think itwas the beginning of februaryyou had a second post um yesterday um inthe inin the wake of the of the oversightboard ruling that came downwith a slightly different view uh youwrote his posts that daymade while rioters were in the capitolbuilding could clearly beinterpreted as supporting their violentbehavior i think the facebook oversightboard obviously agrees with you butbut what’s what’s changed why did youbefore think he shouldbe let back on and and now you maybe arequestioning thatno i’m not really questioning that ididn’t make thati wrote the february piece in thecontext that he was no longer presidentthat there was no longer a clear andpresent danger that he would use thepower of the oval office toeither directly through the use ofnational security personnel or themilitaryor through his bully pulpit being abletobe the president uh rally what would bein effecta assault on democratic institutions andsosince he was no longer there in februaryi thought he should be let back onbecause he’s now a private citizenuh i still believe that but i think inlight of the facebookboard’s decision yesterday the standardsby which he can be allowed back onand which would then apply to othersimilar casesneed to be elucidated by facebook andyesterday’s piecewas designed to say that as markzuckerbergand facebook decide what those policieswill beboth with respect to the president andin other similar caseshe ought to lean heavily on anamerican-style first amendment viewthat would make only clear and presentdangersto uh direct insightful speech and icited the brandenburg vs ohio case umshould lead to banning other than thatpolitical speech is inherentlycontentious it is inherently uhpassionateand as i pointed out in the piece oftenintentionally uses martial imageryand i think the context of politicsmeans that facebook ought to steervery clear of censoring people eventhosewho create widely heldpassions for and against uh that couldmotivatepeople of ill mind to commit violenceotherwise we would have to say thata facebook in 1857 should eliminateabolitionist speechbecause it could encourage john y brownto goattack harper’s ferry and try and createa slave insurrection i don’t think wewant to go thereso so you agree that the facebookoversight board to getshould see clarity about the rules withfacebook but your message basically tofacebook is that they should leanheavily towards once clarifying thoserules reinstatingtrump if i understand that correctlyhenry oh i think we lost him okayum i’m here can you come here you gookay i can hear you nowyeah i’m afraid i have an unstableinternet connection umthat um i had expected the board toestablish a standard on its own itdecided togive that back to facebook in the firstinstance so yesterday’s column wasbasically a message to facebook of ifyou really believe in the freeif you really believe in the americanfirst amendment you need to havepolicies that reflect thatand that means a very widebirth you should all right i want tocome back to that in a minute i want toturn to pfizer now but i want to comeback to that uhand to ask you questions about about uhpotential harms but let me turnto fisa first you wrote um the new ournew platform of choice forfor sharing everything of course uh notso new is twitteruh you wrote yesterday facebook got morethan theybargained for in turning this over tothe oversight board whichtook them took facebook to task so howsoand what did you think about uh aboutthedecision the decision by the oversightboardfisahenry are you with us uh nowi’m muted oh there you are okay sorrythe classic i got to mute myself it’sterriblei think that you know when when facebookwas setting up and designing this boardum it was quite interesting to watchtheir process right because they wereobviouslytrying to channel the ways in which theboard would operate and i know it’sindependent and they set up the trustand all that butit was very carefully designed in orderto getsome questions to the board and yet sortof preservefacebook’s prerogative on a whole hostof issuesand i think one of the things that’sbeen interesting to watch is to seeyou know the oversight board kind ofpush back against those boundariesand in particular i i guess i want tohighlight two things that really struckme as is really importantso one was and julie pointed this outwhich was the list of questions rightyou asked these47 questions and we’re very clear abouttelling the public which questionsfacebook didn’t answerand those questions were super importantright because they went to the pointthat you raised vivianaround the algorithms and the technologyand what role facebook itself had playedin amplifying the speech that it thentook downyou know on january 6th and 7th and thenthe second part which i thought wasinteresting was trying to get at thisidea of like what was what is thepoliticalinfluence on facebook right did anybodyfrom trump’s teamcall up facebook and say hey you knowyou got to let ourguy back on the platform these areimportantquestions that facebook has beenavoidingand has sort of been trying to glossover and i think it’s reallygreat to see the board kind of pushingback on those issuesand i think that the sort of coming backto this issue of technology and theboard’s recommendationthat facebook should really uh and ithinkthe open reflection uh was a nice turnof phraseuh on how its own um algorithms and itsown policiesactually amplify the kind of harm thatit then tries to constrain with contentmoderationis really right where it’s at um i’d besurprised if facebook did anythingsubstantive on that but i hope to behopefulbe pleasantly surprised on that so uhyour hope is that they they they decidewhat in the end at the end of six monthswell i think i think the six-month issueis really related to how they respond totrump right whether they do it on thebasisuh you know how they apply theircurrently availableremedies to trump and the indefinitesuspension isn’t one of them so you knowthat’s a different issuei think the the overall i believefacebook has 30 days if i’m not wrongto respond publicly to recommendationsby the boardum and obviously you know none of theseare not things that are going to happenin 30 days but i think at that end ofthat 30-day period we’ll getat least a little bit of a sense of howfacebook takes these very importantquestions which you foundhenry let me come back to you because ii i i hear your point about uhthe facebook airing on the side of freespeech and reinstating trumpum but trump is still very much a publicfigureum he has tens of millions of people inthe united states believethat he is the rightful winner of the2020 electionum and um they stilllisten to him intently uh is he notstilla risk uh because of those very samepeople whouh many of the same people who stormedthe capitalon january 6th could be incited by trumpand we know the real world harms thatthatthat has brought so how do you squareyour decision about uhthat it was right for them for them totake him down after january 6but now that he’s not president yetstill highly intensely influentialthat now it’s okay can you just say alittle bit more about thatyeah um look political risk carepolitical speech carries riskyou know the person who drove fromillinois with a semi-automatic weapon tomurder 30 republican members of congresswhich he was avoid which he was avertedfrom only becauseone of the members was in houseleadership and had security there toreturnfire had steve scalise not been present30 republican members would have beenmurdered by this personum that is an unfortunate risk of havingfree speechand i don’t think that limiting peoplewho you don’t likewho have influence is the appropriateway to governa platform that seeks to be devoted tofree speechmark zuckerberg and facebook haveclearly stated they are devoted freespeechthey stated that when they establishedthe oversight boardand if you start saying well thisperson’s too hatefulor this person’s too influentialthat ultimately becomes something in theeye of the beholderand then we no longer have a platformthat is dedicated to free speech youhave a platform that will either bebandied about by political purposesdepending on the pressures of the dayto suppress the opponents of the peoplewho hold political poweror you will have a partisan entity thatseeks to suppressspeech that it disagrees with there’s aword for thatthat’s a publisher and if markzuckerberg wants facebook to become apublisherthen he should remove any 230 section230 protectionsand act as any private publisher thepublisher of the new republic or thepublisher of the national reviewand people should understand facebook inthose termsfuzzy your responsei was trying to follow instructions tostay on mute when not speakingoh sorry no worries umyou know look i’mvery um very devoted to free speech so ithink i have a lot of sympathyfor what henry is saying over here inthe sense that i think there should bea presumption that political speechshould be allowed on the platformand that there should be only verylimited instancesin which um that speech should beremovedbut i do think that you know it’s it’s abitmisleading to kind of accept markzuckerberg’s claim thatfacebook is about free speech facebookis about free speechfor some people facebook is about freespeechfor people like donald trump or otherinfluential peopleon the other hand i think a lot ofmarginalized communitiesa lot of people of color are routinelykicked off facebook or had their postsremovedor their speech suppressedbecause of facebook’s rules and i thinkthe rules actuallyby far favor the powerful as opposed tothe powerless and i think that’s thepiece ofof facebook structure which i find themostdisturbing which is that it is in somesense a series ofcascading discretionary decisions aboutyou know compare for example the ruleson hate speech versus the rules ofterrorist contentthere are really severe bans on whatthey call terrorist contentand when you come to hate speech therules are much more nuanced there’sa lot more levels there’s a lot lessenforcement it seemsi think these are the kinds ofdiscrepancies that i’m much more worriedabout i’m much less worried abouttrump having a platform on facebook ornot because i think he has so many otheroutlets than i am about sort of theability of ordinary citizens toexpress views that are across a broadspectrumof ideas and ideologymany of course would argue that the uhthe actual directimpact with uh the calls and the supportof trump the call toto kill members of congress uh to goafterthose who do not support uh trump uhwouldwould would warrant uh and and and thatcontinuing uh refusal of trump toacknowledgethat would warrant that this might trumpsmall t sorry um those free speechprovisionsin the same way that terrorist rhetoricwould um i want tonow um open it up to your questionsso um and uh i will do my besthere to um to uh with the help of uhhelp with the team here at aspen toselect those questions and i will uh trymy best toum direct them to the appropriate peoplebut uh i would ask any of our paneliststo just jump inif they have um something to say so thisfirst one comes in fromum anna rosa alves a reporter with thebrazilian newspaper oh globoa lot of critics say that facebook’salgorithmspurposely promote polarizing rhetoric toincrease their ad revenuetherefore unless their business model isrevamped all actions to tackledisinformation at best will have apalliative effectto what extent do you think that is trueumuh i will turn this over to uh membersof the facebookoversight board um and happy to see whowouldlike to take this i’m having troubleseeing my screen and reading thequestions at the same timeum uh ronaldo lamos how about i turnthis one over to youthank you vivian and thank you anna josefor asking that questionso uh as i mentioned beforeuh of course algorithms matterand of course they are part of thecontext uhin every analysis that the boardwill be doing so we are talking hereabouta platform a platform that usesalgorithms sophisticated algorithms todecidehow they are basically lined up in yournews feed and so on so that thosequestions on the house theythey really matter uh in this particularcaseuh of course we asked uh questions aboutthatuh to facebook and those questions werenot answeredbut uh even so uh we had theall the elements that we needed uh tomake a decision in this particular caseso going forward this is something thatas i mentioned before is part of ourconcernsand is something that we are lookinginto and of course it has repercussionsto what we were previously debating herein terms of uh free speech on facebookand what content gets amplified and whatcontent getsnot amplified and sometimes uhthere are political speeches that areoverlyamplified and there are other legitimatespeeches and that might not havethe same treatment that’s why the boardhasasked facebook to decide clear ruleswithin six months and applythose clear rules uniformly uhin regards to all the users so this isone of the things that the boardis actually pushing facebook to do anduhof course this is something in terms ofthe algorithms that will be lookinguh forward and keep looking goingforwardthank you um uh john samples i think youwanted to weigh in hereyes uh this uh question about the designof the platformand other issues uh was not reached inthis casein the decision itself so it’s not partof the decision it’s notbinding on facebook i would saythat in general i think the policyadvice we give themwhile it’s not required is actuallyvery much in their interest and isuspect they will want todo many of these things one of thethings we advise them to do is to goback and look at thethe period leading up to the electionand to assess the responsibility of theplatform uh in this regard what andindeed i think there’s some evidencealreadythat we’ve seen in the public spherethat they are have been doing thati read a report that had been posted andleaked at facebookand what i would say is there’s anotherside to thisright we’re assuming that this is aneasy question that facebook justdoes the right thing uh what i foundfrom thatleaked report was that this is actuallyquite complicated questionfacebook does a lot of things indesigning the platform and in governingplatform that are not known and haveenormous powerright in other words not to suppressspeechnecessarily or remove uh accounts fromthe platformbut from just affecting uh theinterrelationshipof speakers and their listeners orexpression and how much expressionis being heard the question of frictionthat is uhis one of those things that is facebookhas the abilityto make it harder for speeches uh forexpressionto be heard more broadly and you knowyou can see whythat might be thought to be a good thingin a situationwhere uh violence is possible and so onbut it’s all friction is uh and puttingit in there orsimilar kinds of things that i don’tknow about are alsoin the wrong hands and for the wrongreasons a profound can have profoundeffectson the debate and deliberation in acountry prior to an election or priorto judgments about policyso i think yes uh we have recommendedthey look at thisbut we also have to recognize that thequestion of designis a very complicated question and onethatuh where regulation uhinternal or external holds thepossibilities of bothgood and bad effects from a democraticpoint of viewall right next question comes fromshireen mitchellwith stop online violence against womenumher question is if the charge of theoversight board is to consider humanrights in the context of content on theplatformwhy are the cases reviewed by the boardlimited there seems to be only a focuson high profile casesbut the day-to-day user harms and theconnection to the terms of service orcommunity standardsseem to be less important and leavemarginalized usersin harm’s way de-platforming groups likeproud boys people like alex jones afterthe harm has been inflictedseems to suggest safety is a secondaryconcern over speechwhen these cases made it to the boardisn’t this the oppositeof the charge of the board um uhjamil how about i turn this over to youum sorry i don’t know if you hadasked someone to respond but i’m happyto respond go ahead[Music]okay thank you um i i would say thatum we don’t only have high profile casesif you look at the history of the caseswe have publisheduh we’ve published cases related tominor religious minority voices in indiawe’ve published cases related touh the the the muslim populationin myanmar with uh made decisionsin the in the case of thenagorno-karabakh conflictbetween armenia and azerbaijan sowe and by in doing so we lookednot only at you know policies relatedto hate or policies related to dangerousorganizationsbut we’re also looking at uh othercommunity standardsapplied by the company um and i thinkdoing this uh we allows us alsoto you know get a get and have an ideaa clearer idea of howthe over enforcement of communitystandardscontribute to the silencingof marginalized voices in our latestdecision that was publishedright before the one we’re discussing itwas related to religious minority inindia who werecomplaining against the umyou know exclu exclusion policy bypractice by the current indiangovernmentand uh we did ask questions in that inthat case to facebook with regards towhether or not it you know chooses toover enforce its policies against groupsthat are notuh favored by the by the currentgovernment and i think it’s important tobear this in mind thatuh there is over enforcement of policiesnot only you know the most permanent oneparticularlyhate speech for instance or dangerousorganizations but there are othercommunity standards that areused basically to over-enforce and tosilence voices and we are payingextreme attention to that too in theselection of cases that wewere working onokay five so i think you wanted to maybejump in hereum i i hadn’t had my hand out but but ithink that that woulduh julie said is exactly right i meanthe board has taken ona range of cases this is perhaps this isclearly the most high-profileuh case of a super user super spreaderwhatever you want to call himum and i do think that the point thatthe dewey made about over enforcement ofcommunity standards in certain contextsis really critical because the realityis all weknow as the public about what facebookhow facebook is enforcing its standardsis what facebook has chosen to tell usum their transparency reports havegotten better and better over the yearsbut at the same time they are thecompany’s uhdecision about what we need to know andi think there’s a lot morethat we need to know to understand theimpact of content moderationacross different communities indifferent parts of the worldokay thank you thank you faisa aquestion i’ll give this one to youuh jamal this comes from liam odellthere were over 8 000 public commentssubmitted in this casewhat was the process behind examiningall those comments and what insightdid the oversight board gain from theseresponses and i’ll add a corollaryuh to that uh just becausemy own question is and how much of animpact do those comments have on youron your decision and can you point toany in particularso um in terms of process umthe there were almost 10 000 comments soi think it was 9666 that’sby orders of magnitude more than theboard has received in prior casesthe board does have a very um highlycompetent and effective staffum that helps to um curate um some ofthethe comments um so that we umhave a manageable number to look atum but in in any event umthe the board looked at a very largenumber ofof comments um i i won’tum just to in in terms ofprotecting the integrity of thedeliberationwon’t get into the specific commentsthe comments are available to be read byum by anyone they can bethey’re linked from the uh from theopinion itself so anyway all of thecomments sorry all of the questionsall the comments are are linked uh ibelieve all of them are linkedum directly from the opinion so one canread thethe comments and uh and see what peopleum decided to submitbut the the board um read the commentstook them seriously um i think it’s safeto saythat um there was deliberation thatinvolved some of the commentsi think allen might have mentioned thatum in hisum op-ed but i i won’t get into thespecifics butthe the board always takes the commentsum it receives very seriouslyand i can say that in prior cases notjust this case butother cases as well uh the comments umwe’ve received have beenvaluable to my own thinkinghey thank you um this next question uhis from jay wright uh the question is ifdealing with one decision takes monthshow will the company and this boardever deal with policing the actualvolumeof post share i mean it needs to be saidthis is now not um jay’s words but youknow the the sort of the end run aroundfacebook oversight board decisions isthat you’re dealing withposts not ideas right so uh donaldtrump’s incitement of the big lie can beseen over the line but other notorioususers and allies asone of our other questioners uh pointedout like bannon were left on facebookspreading those same liesabout the 2020 election so we’ve learnedsince the trump ban that mark zuckerberghad a different set of rules forright-wing extremistswhich allowed posts praising conspiracytheorists like alex jones to stay on sohow does theoversight board hope to affect changeand overall and and impact overallpolicy and not just tweak around themarginsas well which is of course the boardonly takes a small number of casesum that’s a small number of the cases itreceives umyou know the board has received um uhlots and lots many tens of thousands ofappeals at this pointuh and those appeals only represent asmall percentage ofpeople who are aggrieved in some way bythings that facebook does or doesn’t doright so of course um one can’tchange uh a large company or a largecultureum through a small very small number ofindividual case decisions but theopinions matterand the case selection process mattersthe cases are selected on the basis oftheir likelihood of being repeatedacross the platformum the impact the decision might have sowe try to take cases that arerepresentativeof problems that that we see in at thecompanyand in implementing the decisions um thecompany uh has uh committed to takingthose uh the decisions of the board umseriouslyum so uh so so thejust in the way that courts don’t takenot to press this analogytoo far but um just in the way thatcourts um don’t decide every issuein an individual case and precedentsmatter and people look to thoseprecedents to figure out how tohow to resolve future cases the same istrue of the boardi’ll also say that in therecommendations the board makes that’sanother important part of the board’sworkand those recommendations areforward-looking they’re systematicthey’re designed to be systematic andfacebook has an obligation to respond tothem publicly and so that’sanother a point of leverage for theboard to try to to try to make changeall right the next question comes fromelizabeth meyer she’suh adjunct associate law professor atamerican university in dc her questiongiven that the board is made up ofmostly of non-usexperts who come from different legalcontextual and historical backgroundsthan the strong tradition of liberty andfreedom this is her question of speechin the u.show does this influence the outcome ofthe debateon a u.s companyi might ask one of our non-us expertshere who may want to challenge thetradition of liberty and free speechtradition in other in other countries soum julie would you like to take this oneronaldo yes i think julie is back butgo ahead oh sorryi had a technical problem i didn’t evenhear the question i’m sorry that’s rightgo ahead honaldo we’ll come back to youwith a different questionno problem so uh i think vivian this isaa very important point uh i think likeuhthe impact that the oversight boardis looking to have of course it takesintoconsideration uh primarily for instancehowhuman rights principles actually inbad and have been embedding for a longtime principles of free speechso i read with great uh interests likehenry olsen’s uh open just yesterday atthe washington postand one point that strikes me is thatfacebook’s community standards isalreadyheavily influenced by the firstamendment in the united statesso if you read uh about how the rules ofthe community standards are actuallydesignedand how they are actually uh written youwill see that there is a lot of uhoverlap and resemblance even with thelanguage of decisionsuh that historically have been taken inregards to the first amendmentso that that is already part of theconsiderations that the boarduh actually used to to make decisionsbut more than that uh there is aninternational body of human rightsprinciples which actually come fromtreaties in which the united statesthemselves are part and i think that isalso very relevant becausethese treaties they are applied acrossthe globe and they are applied forinstance for countries likebrazil and others that are alsosignatories to those treatiesand sometimes if you look at thecommunity standards of facebookthey they’re much more pro-free speechthan a lot of national laws so uh if youlook to the situation of free speechin the world today and if you look intofreedom houses reportsbrazil for instance is having a momentin which we are decliningin terms of the guarantees that you needto havein terms of free speech and in in thatsituationfacebook community standards arepositionedeven higher than uh national lawsin many cases so i i think the thecommitment of theuh oversight boy to basically look intohuman rightstreaties and how freedom of speech isprotected over those treatiesand also into applying the communitystandards andi think that that is extremely relevantto the waywe we are looking to this problem from aglobal perspective becausethat is a point the the oversight boardit has to deal with cases not only fromthe united statesuh but also cases from everywhereuh in the globe and i think the lookinginto uh the community standardsand the human rights treaties i thinkit’s it’s aprincipled normative way to approachthat problemokay on on this sticking with this samequestion uh johnand then jamal uhi agree with everything when all thosesaid but i wanted to add a little bitmoreum throughout the decision we note atvarious times similarityto u.s first amendment law but it’s alsoi want to say why i think this is anexciting timefor freedom of speech and the idea offreedom of speechwhich is that yet facebook isbeyond borders it is a globalinstitutionand even in the united states the firstamendment applies to the public sectornot to the private sectoras part of its uh global reach facebookagreed to be guided by internationalhuman rightsnorms including free speech and that’san american principle that consent bybusiness to whatever is an importantidea in the united stateswhat will happen i think in the futureand i think ultimately be goodis that the great authoritythat brandenburg that free speech thatbroad robustfree speech protections have in theunited statesuh will not transfer easily abroad nowthis is notbad for the following reason what itmeansthat free speech will have to go forwardon its own termswe will have to make the argument peoplelike henry and i that believe inthe strong free speech that it’s notbecause it’s in the u.s constitution butrather becauserobust free speech protections are thebest policyfor people everywhere it’s naturalrights or whatever but it’s of the bestoutcomes toothe societies that don’t do that are theones that aren’t going to bethriving now true there are risks butwe’ve what history says i think isthat we’ve reached this conclusion aboutfree speech as humanityprecisely because it’s a very workablepolicy so it’s an exciting time in whichwe will have to go back and not rely onthe authority ofa century of supreme court decisions butratherfind out what was the real argumentsthere what is the benefits of freespeechand make that case throughout the worldi think it’s you know this board andthisuh the spread of facebook can be thebeginning of a really golden age forfreedom of speech if we make ourarguments and we’re toughand persistent in making those argumentsas i know henry will beand everyone on the board will bejamal just want to very brieflyjust amplify something that ronaldo saidthat also touches on something i saidearlierabout the distinction between nationallawsand international law and sometimesthese things do get conflatedparticularly in american free speechdebates as as justforeign law as as a sort of unifiedthing that’s not that’s not american butum international law standards are notthe same thing as the particularnational laws of other jurisdictionsand there is no doubt that u.sfree expression law looks very differentfrom free expression law inmany other countries but the the gapbetween u.s free speech law andinternational human rights lawas it pertains to free expression is notis not not quitethe same kind of gap um uh it’s acomplicated questionum but uh but it is important toseparate out those thingsthe next question comes from somebodywhochose not to share their name uh thequestion is uhwell it starts with a statement facebookis an international platform certainlywe know that’s trueum it has billions of users not all ofthem are in the united stateswhat are the implications of thisdecision worldwide if any will worldleaders or i think the expression whatwas it that you used in your documentinfluentialindividuals i think it was be expectedto petitionuh the facebook oversight board for oragainst uhor or petition facebook for that matterwithin the next six months what do youwhat might you think the implications ofthat will beum and i realized the facebook oversightboard members uh you know this is out ofyour jurisdiction but we would welcomeyour comment or um or henry or faisa aswellum i mean that i think it is obviouslythe question right becausewe’ve seen that facebook hasincreasingly takenaction against political leaders and hasand some of the other platforms thatpeople have become a little more bold ifyou willuh over the last few months i would sayuh in in acting against politicalleadersyou know i think it it sets a reallyimportant signal thoughuh which is in contravention to sort ofthe newsworthinessyou know we will allow elected officialsto say what they want on our platformoutline that facebook had previouslytaken which is to say thati mean the boards recommend coursefindings on sort of high reach accountsare recommendations at this point and sofacebook has tocome up with the policy on that but atleast i think it sets the bar for sayingyou know it’s not open season you cannotsay whatever it is that you pleaseon the platform and assume that you willhave no consequencesand for people for whom facebook is animportant venue forum for getting their message out andalso for fundraising which is a reallycritical piece ofas well i think that is an importantsignaljulie i think you wanted to speak heretooyes um absolutely i i agree withuh what is i just said andi would like to add thatum whatis extremely important to remember hereis alsothe board saying as influential usersyou do have a writer free expression butthat comes withhuge responsibility given the platformthat you’re using and the platform thatyou have andthat responsibility includes of coursenot violating the community standardsbut more broadly it includes protectingpublic safetyand i think that is something that hasbeenmissing from the conversation untiluntil i mean that that wasn’tuh addressed by the platforms until nowand uh this applies to not onlythe form of president trump here butcould apply to other very famousleaders who have been gamingthis system you know this theseloopholes to spread whatever theywhatever they wantedwith total impunity and i would say alsoin my view it empowers umusers that have less um wellless power obviously you know theregular useruh because as it was reminded at the atthe beginning of thisof this uh discussion we are now takingalsocontent that can be that has been leftup on the platformso as a user ifuh you are seeing something that maybethe boardor even facebook doesn’t see because wehave to remember thatfacebook understands and particularlyits automated content moderation systemthey understand very well english frenchand many other languagesbut they don’t understand all of themand there’s a lot that goes under theradarso if you as a user who speaks orunderstand reads another language youfeel like something is wrong thata head of state or a very influentialuser is spreadinguh and violating potentially communitystandardsyou have a way to appeal to the boardand that i think isquite um yes quite importantjulie we you you just muted but we butwe heard just for the last words but wegot you we are nowout of time i’m so sorry that we had somany fantastic questions that weresubmitted that we were unable touh get to but the conversation continuesso i just want to thankof the members of the uh facebookoversight board who joined usuh john ronaldo julie and jamal and alsotofaiza and henry um for their uhfantastic comedy and thank youuh commentary and thank you to you uhfor your questions and your attentionand we’ll see you nexttime thank youyou

On Wednesday, May 5, the independent Facebook Oversight Board announced a binding decision to uphold the suspension of President Donald Trump’s account, which was removed indefinitely following the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Join us for an on-the-record public discussion with Oversight Board members and other experts about the decision and its far-reaching implications.

Facebook Oversight Board Members

• Jamal Greene, Professor, Columbia Law School
• Ronaldo Lemos, Professor, Rio de Janeiro State University’s Law School
• Julie Owono, Executive Director, Internet Sans Frontières
• John Samples, Vice President, CATO Institute

Commentators

• Faiza Patel, Director, Liberty & National Security, Brennan Center for Justice
• Henry Olsen, Senior Fellow, Ethics & Public Policy Center; Columnist, The Washington Post 

Moderated by Vivian Schiller, Executive Director, Aspen Digital

Jamal Greene

Professor, Columbia Law School

Jamal Greene is the Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he has taught courses on constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, the law of the political process, the First Amendment, and American federal courts. His scholarship focuses on constitutional rights adjudication as well as the structure of legal and constitutional argument. Professor Greene is the author of numerous articles and book chapters and a frequent media commentator on constitutional law and the Supreme Court. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and a visiting scholar at the Knight First Amendment Institute. Prior to joining Columbia’s faculty, Professor Greene served as a law clerk to the Hon. Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for the Hon. John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ronaldo Lemos

Professor, Rio de Janeiro State University’s Law School

Ronaldo Lemos is a lawyer specializing in technology, intellectual property, media and public policy. He is a partner at PNM Advogados, a leading law firm in Brazil, and has twenty years of experience in the private and public sectors. Dr. Lemos was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford, Princeton, the MIT Media Lab and a Visiting Professor at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). He co-created Brazil’s Internet Bill of Rights Law (2014) and Brazil’s National IoT Plan (2018) and served on the Boards of the Mozilla Foundation, Access Now and other non-profit organizations. Previously, Dr. Lemos was Vice-President of the Social Communication Council in the National Congress in Brazil. Dr. Lemos writes weekly about law and technology for Folha de S. Paulo, one of Brazil’s most widely read newspapers.

Julie Owono

Executive Director, Internet Sans Frontières

Julie Owono is an expert in digital rights and international technology law, and an advocate for Business and Human Rights principles in the technology industry. She is Executive Director of Internet Sans Frontières, an organization which defends digital rights and access to the internet. She is also a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, a Digital Civil Society Fellow at Stanford University, a member of UNESCO’s Ad Hoc Expert Group (AHEG) for the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, a Member of the Expert Committee on Digital Inclusion of the World Benchmarking Alliance, and a Civil Society member of the Global Network Initiative’s Board.

John Samples

Vice President, CATO Institute

John Samples is a Vice President at the Cato Institute. He founded and now directs Cato’s Center for Representative Government, which studies freedom of speech, the First Amendment and other aspects of American political institutions. He is currently working on an update to his monograph, ‘Why Government Should not Regulate Content Moderation of Social Media.’ He is also the author of ‘The Struggle to Limit Government: A Modern Political History,’ and ‘The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform,’ as well as the co-editor with Michael McDonald of ‘The Marketplace of Democracy.’ Prior to joining Cato, Samples served as Director of Georgetown University Press for eight years, and before that, as Vice President of the Twentieth Century Fund. He has published scholarly articles in journals including Society, History of Political Thought, and Telos along with numerous contributions to edited volumes and has been featured in publications like USA Today, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. Samples received his PhD in political science from Rutgers University.

Faiza Patel

Director, Liberty & National Security, Brennan Center for Justice

Faiza Patel serves as codirector of the Brennan Center’s Liberty & National Security Program. She is an expert on immigration, racial profiling, freedom of speech, privacy, oversight mechanisms, surveillance, technology, policing, and platform governance. Patel has authored or coauthored several Brennan Center reports and is a frequent commentator on national security and counterterrorism issues for media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Economist, Guardian, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, NPR, New York Daily News, and National Law Journal. She has published widely in academic outlets as well. Born and raised in Pakistan, she is a graduate of Harvard College and NYU School of Law.

Henry Olsen

Senior Fellow, Ethics & Public Policy Center; Columnist, The Washington Post

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world. Mr. Olsen is an opinion columnist for The Washington Post and is also the author of The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism and The Four Faces of the Republican Party, co-authored with Dante Scala. Mr. Olsen has worked in senior executive positions at many center-right think tanks. Prior to his time at EPPC, he served as Vice President and Director, National Research Initiative, at the American Enterprise Institute. He previously worked as Vice President of Programs at the Manhattan Institute and President of the Commonwealth Foundation.

Vivian Schiller

Executive Director, Aspen Digital

Vivian Schiller is the Executive Director of Aspen Digital. A longtime executive at the intersection of journalism, media and technology, Schiller has held executive roles at some of the most respected media organizations in the world. Those include: President and CEO of NPR; Global Chair of News at Twitter; General Manager of NYTimes.com; Chief Digital Officer of NBC News; Chief of the Discovery Times Channel, a joint venture of The New York Times and Discovery Communications; and Head of CNN documentary and long form divisions. Documentaries and series produced under her auspices earned multiple honors, including three Peabody Awards, four Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards, and dozens of Emmys. Schiller is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and a Director of the Scott Trust, which owns The Guardian.