Social Media Councils: One Piece in the Puzzle of Content Moderation

The current content moderation practices allow social media companies to have significant power over people’s right to freedom of expression. Despite this, social media platforms are still not accountable for how they moderate the content. To address this, Article 19 came up with an initiative to put forward a model for a multi-stakeholder mechanism for the oversight of content moderation on social media, known as the Social Media Council (SMC). The key objectives of the SMC are to:

Review individual content moderation decisions made by social media platforms based on international standards on freedom of expression and other fundamental rights; provide general guidance on content moderation practices to ensure they follow international standards on freedom of expression and other fundamental rights, and act as a forum where stakeholders can discuss recommendations; use a voluntary-compliance approach to the oversight of content moderation that does not create legal obligations.

Discussions with Irish stakeholders have indicated a genuine interest in creating a pilot SMC in Ireland. This report summarises these discussions and recommends the creation of a working group to carry the project forward.