By Elizabeth Culliford
(Reuters) -Facebook users will now be able to ask the company’s independent oversight board to rule on content that has been left up on the platform, as well as what was taken down, in a key expansion of the board’s scope.
The board was created by Facebook Inc in response to criticism of its handling of problematic content, but has been faulted by researchers and civil rights groups for its limited remit.
Before this change, Facebook and Instagram users who had exhausted the appeals process could send cases of removed content to the board, but only the company itself could ask the board to review content left up on the site.
In the coming weeks, the oversight board is also expected to decide whether to uphold Facebook’s indefinite suspension of former U.S. President Donald Trump, imposed after the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Editing by Kenneth Li, Chizu Nomiyama and Mike Harrison)
