Go read about how Facebook’s pseudo-Supreme Court came together

Photo illustration by William Joel | Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images

Can Facebook meaningfully have a Supreme Court?

The title of a new feature in The New Yorker, written by law professor Kate Klonick, implies that the answer is yes. The story is more complicated.

The feature is called “Inside the making of Facebook’s Supreme Court,” and it’s an unprecedentedly detailed look at the Facebook Oversight Board, a Facebook-funded semi-independent panel that can overrule Facebook takedown decisions. The Oversight Board launched in October, and it issued its first decisions in January, saying Facebook had made the wrong call on four removed posts. In the coming months, it will make its highest-profile decision to date: whether Facebook should restore the account of former president Donald Trump. But as Klonick...