The supervisory board is made up of 20 members in total, including former Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former editor of The Guardian newspaper Alan Rusbridger, legal scholars, human rights experts and journalists.
The board was created last year with the first four members chosen directly by Facebook. These initial members then worked with the social media giant to select the rest. Facebook pays the salaries of the members of the supervisory board.
The social media giant came under fire when the composition of its board of directors was first announced last year, with critics saying the so-called “politically neutral” panel was inundated with leading leftists.
Here are the 20 members:
Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyeis – A human rights defender who works on women’s rights, media freedom and access to information across Africa at the Open Society Initiative for West Africa.
Evelyn Aswad – A professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, formerly Senior State Department lawyer specializing in the application of international human rights standards to content moderation issues
Endy Bayuni – A journalist who was twice editor of the Jakarta Post and who helps run a journalist association that promotes excellence in reporting on religion and spirituality.
Catalina Botero Marino, co-chair – Former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, who is now Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Universidad de los Andes.
Katherine Chen – A communications researcher at National Chengchi University who studies social media, mobile news and privacy, and a former national communications regulator in Taiwan.
Nighat papa – A digital rights advocate who provides digital security training to women in Pakistan and across South Asia to help them protect themselves from online harassment, campaigns against government restrictions on dissent, and received the Human Rights Tulip Prize.
Jamal Greene, Co-chair – A Columbia law professor who focuses on the settlement of constitutional rights and the structure of legal and constitutional argument.
Pamela Karlan – A Stanford law professor and Supreme Court attorney who has represented clients in voting rights, LGBTQ + rights and First Amendment cases, and is a member of the board of directors of the American Constitution Society. Karlan was asked to describe the differences between a US president and a king during Trump’s impeachment hearing when she mentioned the name of the first son. “The Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility, so if the president can appoint his son Barron, he cannot make him a baron,” Karlan told lawmakers. She apologized later.
Tawakkol Karman – A Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who used her voice to promote nonviolent change in Yemen during the Arab Spring, and was named one of Time magazine’s “most rebellious women” .
Maina Kiai – A director of the Global Alliances and Partnerships program at Human Rights Watch and a former United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association who has decades of experience in human rights advocacy in Kenya.
Sudhir Krishnaswamy – A vice-chancellor of the National Law School of India University who co-founded an advocacy organization that works to advance constitutional values for all, including LGBTQ + and transgender people, in India.
Ronaldo Lemos – A lawyer specializing in technology, intellectual property and media who co-created a national Internet rights law in Brazil, co-founded a non-profit organization focused on technology and policy issues and teaches law at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
Michael McConnell, co-chair – A former U.S. Federal Circuit judge who is now a professor of constitutional law at Stanford, religious freedom expert and Supreme Court attorney who has represented clients in a wide range of First Amendment cases involving freedom of expression , religion and association.
Julie Owono – A digital rights and anti-censorship advocate who leads Internet Without Borders and campaigns against Internet censorship in Africa and around the world.
Emi Palmor – A former Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Justice who has led initiatives to combat racial discrimination, advance access to justice through digital services and platforms, and promote diversity in the public sector.
Alan Rusbridger – A former editor of The Guardian who turned the newspaper into a global institution and oversaw Pulitzer Prize coverage of Edward Snowden’s revelations. He was editor-in-chief of the left-wing Guardian for 20 years, which was chosen by Edward Snowden to publicize his NSA leaks and campaigned against Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States.
András Sajó – Former judge and vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights, specialist in freedom of expression and comparative constitutionalism.
John samples – A public intellectual who writes extensively on social media and speech regulation, advocates against restrictions on online expression, and helps lead a libertarian think tank.
Nicolas Suzor – A professor at the Queensland University of Technology Law School who focuses on social network governance and the regulation of automated systems, and has published a book on Internet governance.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt, co-chair – A former Prime Minister of Denmark who repeatedly defended freedom of expression during his tenure and then served as CEO of Save the Children. The Social Democrat was elected in 2011 on a pro-immigration, high-tax manifesto before losing power in 2015.
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