Facebook names Kenya’s Maina Kiai in panel for content decisions

SAN FRANCISCO,

Facebook has named Kenya’s human rights advocate Maina Kiai in the board that will decide on what content to allow or remove from the world’s largest social media platform.

Mr Kiai is a director of Human Rights Watch's Global Alliances and Partnerships Programme. He is also a former United Nations special rapporteur.

According to Facebook, the Oversight Board members have lived in more than 27 countries, and speak at least 29 languages among them.

Other members of the Facebook "supreme court" announced Wednesday include:
- Catalina Botero-Marino: A former special rapporteur for freedom of expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States; currently dean at the law school of the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia.

- Jamal Greene: Columbia University law professor specializing in constitutional rights adjudication.

- Michael McConnell: Former US federal judge who is now a constitutional law professor at Stanford University.

- Helle Thorning-Schmidt: Former prime minister of Denmark who later served as CEO of Save the Children.

- Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei: A human rights advocate at the Open Society Initiative for West Africa.

- Evelyn Aswad: a University of Oklahoma law professor and former State Department lawyer on international human rights standards.

- Endy Bayuni: Former editor-in-chief of the Jakarta Post.

- Katherine Chen: Communications scholar at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan who studies social media, mobile news and privacy.

- Nighat Dad: Digital rights advocate who offers digital security training to women in Pakistan and across South Asia.

- Pamela Karlan: Stanford Law professor and former US Justice Department official who is on the board of the American Constitution Society.
- Tawakkol Karman: Nobel Peace Prize laureate and activist who promoted non-violent change in Yemen during the Arab Spring.
- Maina Kiai: A director of Human Rights Watch's Global Alliances and Partnerships Program, and a former UN special rapporteur who has been a human rights advocate in Kenya.
- Sudhir Krishnaswamy: Rights activist and vice chancellor of the National Law School of India University.
- Ronaldo Lemos: A technology, intellectual property and media lawyer who co-created a national internet rights law in Brazil, and teaches law at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
- Julie Owono: Digital rights and anti-censorship advocate in Africa who leads Internet Sans Frontieres.
- Emi Palmor: A former director general of the Israeli justice ministry who led initiatives to address discrimination and promote diversity.
- Alan Rusbridger: A former editor-in-chief of The Guardian who oversaw its Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Edward Snowden disclosures.
- Andras Sajo: A former judge and vice president of the European Court of Human Rights.
- John Samples: A vice president of the US-based libertarian Cato Institute who writes extensively on social media and speech regulation.
- Nicolas Suzor: A Queensland University of Technology Law School professor who focuses on the governance of social networks.