Accountability and the Law

Front matter

Comparative Constitutional Change z 3 S m =) a m

Accountability and the Law

This book discusses contemporary accountability and transparency mechanisms by presenting a selection of case studies.

PART I Law

2 Accountability in the globalised digital age: online content moderation and hate speech in the European Union KYRIAKI TOPIDI

3 Economic crises and transformation to the theoretical model of budget process: a comparative constitutional analysis via an example of EU Member States GRZEGORZ KUCA

4 Financial accountability and transparency of public sector institutions in the Republic of Serbia JELENA KOSTIC AND MARINA MATIC BOSKOVIC

PART II Fairness and rights

5 Disciplinary liability of judges: the Polish case PIOTR MIKULI AND MACIEJ PACH vii vi

Contents

Transparency and accountability versus secrecy in intelligence operations: an Italian case study ARIANNA VEDASCHI

Non-judicial legal accountability: the case of the Chilean comptroller-general GUILLERMO JIMÉNEZ

PART III Authority

Presidents” (mis)use of public accountability: going-public tactics in European semi-presidential regimes THOMAS SEDELIUS

Ministerial criminal liability in the Greek legal order: a concise critical review EUGENIA KOPSIDI AND IOANNIS A. VLACHOS

Transparency and accountability of the Italian public administration in the context of public procurement: the case of below-threshold contracts

Transparency and government accountability in Brexit negotiations NATALIE FOX

Index

Contributors

Natalie Fox is an assistant professor in the Chair in Comparative Constitutional Law of Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She is a principal investigator in the research project “The British Constitutional Law and the Membership in the European Union”, financed by the Polish National Science Centre. The aim of the project is to analyse British constitutional law in the context of membership of the UK in the EU.

Guillermo Jiménez is an assistant professor of public law at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (Chile). He holds a PhD in law from University College London (2018). His research interests include constitutional and administrative law, administrative justice, socio-legal studies, legal and political theory, regulatory theory, and comparative law.

Eugenia Kopsidi is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a lecturer at Democritus University of Thrace. From 2016 to 2019 she served as legal advisor to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and she is a member of the National Registry of Lawyers at the Asylum Service since 2017.

Jelena Kostié is a rescarch fellow at the Institute of Comparative Law, Belgrade, Serbia, researching financial and criminal law, including financial management and control, and internal and external audit.

Grzegorz Kuca is an associate professor in the Chair in Comparative Constitutional Law and a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Constitutional Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He has worked at the Office of the Constitutional Tribunal. He is currently an attorney at law, a member of the Krakow Bar Association of Attorneys-at-Law, a member of the Polish Association of Constitutional Law, and a fellow of the European Group of Public Law. His interests include constitutional law and public finances.

Marina Matié Boskovié is a research fellow at the Institute for Criminological and Sociological research in Belgrade, Serbia. She has extensive experience as a justice reform consultant working predominantly for the World Bank and EU in the Western Balkans and Eastern Partner countries. She has been the vii Contributors president ofthe Program Council of Serbian Association of Public Prosecutors since 2007.

Piotr Mikuli is a full professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where he is head of the Chair in Comparative Constitutional Law. His interests include constitutional and administrative justice, political systems, and constitutional principles in comparative perspective. He is the author or co-author ofa number of publications dealing with constitutional issues. He has served inter alia as a visiting professor at Oxford University, a honorary visiting scholar at Leicester University, and a guest researcher at Dalarna University (Sweden) and the University of Lucerne (Switzerland).

Maciej Pach is a researcher in the Chair in Comparative Constitutional Law of Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Since 2016 he has worked as a freelance journalist dealing with constitutional topics and is currently publishing most frequently on popular Polish websites. Leading Polish newspapers also have published his texts.

Thomas Sedelius is a professor of political science at Dalarna University, Sweden. His speciality is political institutions in Eastern Europe, and he has published widely on semi-presidentialism. Professor Sedelius is a Steering Committee member of the Standing Group on Presidential Politics in the European Consortium of Political Research. He is currently the co-director of the Research Profile Intercultural Studies at Dalarna University, where he also teaches comparative politics and supervises PhD students.

Francesca Sgró has had the Italian national scientific qualification as Associate Professor of constitutional law since 2017. She holds a PhD in constitutional law (2010) and has been a researcher in constitutional law since 2016. Sgró was a research fellow in constitutional law at the University of Milan from 2011 to 2015, where she also taught constitutional law and administrative law.

Kyriaki Topidi, is a senior research associate and the head of the culture and diversity cluster at the European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg, Germany. She holds a degree in law from the Robert Schuman Faculty of Law in Strasbourg, a master's in international studies from the University of Birmingham, and a PhD in European studies from Queen's University Belfast. She has undertaken extensive research in the areas of minority rights, EU law, and public international law.

Arianna Vedaschi is a full professor of public comparative law at Bocconi University and has a PhD in law-drafting techniques and law-evaluation methods from the University of Genova. She served as a visiting researcher professor at Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland) and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg, Germany); a visiting professor at the Universities of Valencia (Spain), Lima (Peru), Austral and La Matanza (Buenos Aires, Argentina), and Monterey (Nuevo León, Mexico);

Contributors ix and a visiting scholar at Fordham University (New York, USA) and Exeter University (UK).

Ioannis A. Vlachos holds a degree in law from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a bachelor of arts in business studies (finance and accounting) from the University of Sheffield. He earned his master of laws in criminal law and criminology from the School of Law of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and is a PhD candidate in the same faculty.

Piotr Mikuli and Grzegorz Kuca

This book analyses and discusses issues related to the accountability and transparency of public power and mutual interactions between the two concepts.

We believe that the term “accountability” is quite elastic and inclusive. One has to remember that conceptualising this term may present difficulties due to the lack of a proper equivalent in other languages. We argue, however, that it includes various procedures for assessing individual behaviours of incumbents of state organs in the performance of their duties (including punitive ailments that may befall them but also rewards), many mechanisms involving reporting on this performance (reporting), and various instruments that refer to material (organisational) substrates of a state organ or the whole branch of government. Thus, the notion of accountability includes some kind of relationship between either an individual (i.e., an incumbent of a state organ) and an institution endowed with competences in this respect or between two institutions. The spectrum of these relations may include specific elements described by using expressions (apart from accountability) such as ‘responsibility’ or ‘liability’. In the sphere of constitutional and legal norms in a national state or at the level of a supranational organisation, the aforementioned relationship undoubtedly has normative significance, including legal consequences of applying accountability measures. Nevertheless, some legally prescribed accountability procedures may not evoke an immediate legal effect, or these legal effects may be more general and limited to a particular branch of the law. Within such an approach, one can mention, for instance, the so-called political accountability mechanisms, such as deciding upon a vote of no-confidence motion by a chamber of parliament. In turn, the legal accountability of state organs’ incumbents may also signify applying a direct, repressive legal sanction for breaching the constitution or a statute (a constitutional tort).

The direct link between accountability and transparency has at least a twofold meaning. First, we have to assume that all measures connected with holding people and institutions accountable must be straightforward, clear, and open to eliminate illegal behaviour and the possibility of corruption. Second, both notions interact with each other as they constitute important public values connected with the idea of democracy and the rule of law, and with other critical constitutional components such as separation of powers and checks-and-balances

2 Piotr Mikuli and Grzegorz Kuca mechanisms (Harlow 2014). The sovereign can make conscious electoral decisions only when the activities of those who are in power are transparent. In turn, “good transparent policies contain methods of accountability”, and “transparent policies also provide information to citizens and improve their ability to make choices about the services they receive” (Ball 2009, p. 300). Thus, transparency and accountability interrelate with fundamental constitutional principles, which are also characteristic features of the idea of good governance (Harlow 2006, p. 204ff.). On the other hand, Kosař and Spáé observe that transparency does not necessarily contribute to public institutions? proper and desirable actions, which is why accountability and transparency should be treated separately. Nevertheless, they rightly add that transparency is a prerequisite for accountability, and the former is a separate concept that “operates as the contingent circumstance that might influence whether a certain form of accountability will bring about a particular set of results” (Kosař and Spaé 2018, p. 42).

The contributions included in this collective volume have been divided into three parts: the institutional and objective approach (Part I: Law); the subject approach, referring to a recipient of rights (Part II: Fairness and Rights); and the functional approach, referring to the executors of law (Part III: Authority).

In Chapter 2, Kyriaki Topidi argues that the traditional framework governing the relationship between the state and citizens has changed radically in the 21st century. Instead of a binary structure between the two main actors—the state and citizens—the present setting involves multiple state and non-state actors as well as transnational ones, all involved in the process of producing public goods. The shift is also connected to the extension of the public space to the digital sphere. One of the core questions in terms of governance, therefore, relates to the ways the state can position itself in the battle for accountability that occurs in the media, including social and alternative media. These trends are most evident in the regulation of online content at the EU level. The exercise of free speech can be offensive and can contribute to a climate of prejudice and discrimination against certain groups. Kyriaki's chapter engages with the normative dimensions of the balance between the need to control and limit incitement to violence and the fundamental right to freedom of expression as it is exercised in online contexts.

In Chapter 3, Grzegorz Kuca concentrates on the impact of economic crises on the budget process. Specifically, the author states that the budget process is now beginning to vary from its traditional theoretical model, which entrusts the government with the power to prepare and execute and parliament to adopt and control a state budget. This transformation refers to both formal and substantive matters; that is, it concerns form and content as well as the actual course of the budget process. It also changes the control of both the parliament's and government's actions with judicial review. Therefore, from the perspective of public debt and budget deficits, numerous essential questions must be answered, including those referring to the change in the central bank's role. The author attempts to identify these issues and propose possible solutions to some of them.

In Chapter 4, Jelena Kostić and Marina Matić Bošković raise the issue of financial accountability and transparency of public sector financial operations in the Republic of Serbia. Financial accountability in the public sector in this context includes accountability to ensure efficient, economical, and effective public spending. Transparency of public spending is part of accountability to citizens since they contribute to public revenues. The authors explain key challenges for financial accountability and the key reasons for the development of such challenges, and the behaviour of financial control institutions in Serbia that frame challenges. Based on an analysis of the Supreme Audit Institution's reports of the Republic of Serbia, the authors highlight the problems that exist in practice and propose recommendations for improving the current situation.

In Chapter 5, Piotr Mikuli and Maciej Pach focus on the current legal measures concerning disciplinary accountability of judges in Poland. The authors focus on solutions applied in Poland after several legal modifications that the Law and Justice Party introduced between 2015 and 2020. The Polish case constitutes a warning that the concept of accountability, especially related to judicial power, may be applied in an abusive way. The disciplinary liability measures were introduced in this country under the guise of ensuring greater efficacy of such procedures and judicial power transparency, but they de facto aim to intimidate the entire judicial system. This must also be perceived in light of the systematic breach of the rule of law in Poland.

In Chapter 6, Arianna Vedaschi explains how the tensions between transparency and accountability and state secrecy implied in security-related operations are addressed by Italian legislators and courts, especially in times of severe political stress; namely, those characterised by the ongoing threat of international terrorism. As a first step, the chapter explains the choice of the Italian jurisdiction as the main context for the research from a methodological perspective, and it defines the notions of transparency and accountability from a theoretical perspective. Vedaschi's research focuses on mechanisms designed to ensure oversight of intelligence operations and accountability of agents, and on the relationship between intelligence services and the executive as framed by laws that courts interpret. She also highlights some challenging issues emerging from the described background and discusses whether and how some aspects of the Italian intelligence framework could be improved to achieve a better balance between the values at stake.

In Chapter 7, Guillermo Jiménez explains that this institution, established in the late 1920s, has played a critical role in the Chilean constitutional landscape. It operated for decades as a court substitute and complemented judicial review in the task of ensuring executive branch accountability. The chapter describes this office's main structure and functions, emphasising its monocratic organisation and its combination of a variety of auditing, binding legal interpretations, and internal review powers, as well as its close interaction with both bureaucracy and the legislature. The chapter concludes by placing the Chilean comptroller-general in the broader context of Latin American struggles to ensure legality and subject governments to the rule of law.

4 Piotr Mikuli and Grzegorz Kuca

In Chapter 8, Thomas Sedelius refers to accountability in the semi-presidential system of government. Despite an increasing amount of research about the formal role and prerogatives of the presidency in these systems, we still know little about the various channels for public accountability in dual executive systems. Sedelius’ study partly addresses this gap by empirically examining how presidents in semi-presidential systems utilise their option to yo public to establish citizen support to pursue their agendas. Aware of their popular support, presidents can effectively use the option of public addresses to compensate for their formally weaker powers. Sedelius uses a comparative case study design that includes two Central European countries (Lithuania and Romania) and Finland as long-lasting cases of European semi-presidentialism. He explains the interplay between executive power and citizens. Each country represents a unique semi-presidential path: high levels of institutionalisation and the weakening of a historically strong presidency in Finland in 2000; general intra-executive stability under a personalised political system in Lithuania; and party system instability, strong presidential influence, personalised politics, and high institutional tensions in Romania.

In Chapter 9, Eugenia Kopsidi and Ioannis A. Vlachos contend that the relationship between elected officials” political and criminal—or more broadly, legal— responsibility is linked inextricably to the quality of the rule of law. According to Article 86:

Only the Parliament has the power to prosecute serving or former members of the Cabinet or Undersecretaries for criminal offences that they committed during the discharge of their duties, as specified by law. The institution of specific ministerial offences is prohibited.

In this sense, as the authors emphasise, the legislature seems to substitute the judiciary, which is a constitutional deviation from the foundational principle of separation of powers. Combined with the explicit prohibition of establishing specific ministerial offences, such as procedural immunity, seems to craft a rather entitled and privileged legal framework that encourages impunity among highranking political figures. Moreover, the parliamentary majority at any time can revoke impeachment resolutions or suspend prosecutions and relevant investigatory proceedings. Although officially intended to safeguard cabinet members from groundless complaints and politically driven prosecution, this special procedure governing criminal ministerial liability in Greece has led to constitutionally controversial solutions. The authors argue in this context that the vague notion of political responsibility tends to absorb its criminal counterpart, essentially leading to penal exoneration and escalating mistrust in political institutions.

In Chapter 10, Francesca Sgró examines the constitutional value and legislative implementation of transparency and accountability concerning the public administration, with a particular emphasis on public contracts. She assesses how transparency and accountability—which are traditionally expressions of the constitutional principle of public administration's “impartiality” according to the Italian Constitution's Article 97—have experienced progressive implementation; that is, they have acquired an autonomous ontological relevance that partially emancipates them from the constitutional principle of impartiality, bringing them closer and functionalising them to other different constitutional principles that guide public action, such as ‘good performance” (efficiency) and ‘legality’ (protection from corruption) within the public administration under Article 97. The chapter ends with some constitutional considerations about the highlighted evolution of the principles of transparency and accountability from the Italian perspective— from principles strictly linked to the public administration impartiality concerning autonomous principles and values that are open not only to administrative actions” legality but also to the good performance of the public administration.

In Chapter 11, Natalie Fox refers to the process of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union in the context of the Brexit negotiations started after the notification of Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union. The author wonders how accountability in the divorce process from the EU should be construed. This question is closely linked to the pro-Brexit campaign's main argument to *take back control? and consequentially regain sovereignty. Parliament is obligated to monitor and control the negotiation process as a matter of accountability. The legal analysis is also complemented by an examination of the interpretation and application of the principle of transparency from a legal and political perspective. The ‘maximum level of transparency’ was embraced in the Brexit discussions, and the approach to openness was instrumental. Although the Brexit negotiations are a striking example of the rising importance of the concept of transparency, the UK government embraced the Brexit talks in a particular way. The UK sought to avoid the scenario called a ‘no-deal’ Brexit but consistently exposed a tough line on the issues where it was difficult to reach an agreement despite the fact it would result in the so-called hard Brexit.

To sum up, the chapters included in this volume contain reflections on the developments of the various accountability mechanisms and institutions in times of rapid change. We believe that these chapters, therefore, answer questions concerning the efficiency of accountability and transparency mechanisms from the perspective of consolidated democratic systems as well as various tendencies of democratic decay and infringement on the rule of law.

Ball, C. (2009). What is transparency? Public Integrity, 11(4), pp. 293-307.

Harlow, C. (2014). Accountability and constitutional law. In: Bovens, M., Goodin, R. E. and Schillemans, T. eds. Tbe Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability. Oxtord: Oxford University Press, pp. 195-210.

Harlow, C. (2006). Global administrative law: The quest for principles and values. The European Journal of International Law, 17(1), pp. 187-214.

Kosař, D. and Spáé, S. (2018). Conceptualization(s) of judicial independence and judicial accountability by the European network of councils for the judiciary: Two steps forward, one step back. International Journal of Court Administration, 18(3), pp. 37-46.

Part I Law

2 Accountability in the globalised digital age

Online content moderation and hate speech in the European Union

2.1 Introduction: a new accountability environment

The traditional framework governing the relationship between the state and its citizens has radically changed in the 21st century. Instead of a binary structure between the two main actors, the present setting involves multiple actors—both state and non-state as well as transnational—all involved in the process of production of public goods. This multiplicity/plurality has inevitably affected the locus and operationalisation of accountability.

The digital era and the challenges that it brings fit quite well in this complex, multilateral framework. Whether a researcher refers to the presence and the role of corporate (private) actors or to the levels of regulation in various (relatively new and still developing) policy areas, such as online speech regulation, the implications for accountability are real and pressing. The regulation of online content, particularly in connection to the exercise of the right to freedom of expression, is a powerful reminder of the perennial constitutional (and governance) question of how power should be distributed and regulated in the digital ecosystem. With online expression becoming easier and more plural than ever, it is worth considering how the power to regulate such expression is handled, often in the service of (not always benevolent) political aims that will likely influence and ultimately determine who shall govern (Joshi 2017).!

In classical constitutional studies, the concept of accountability has signified compliance with and respect for the principles of legality and due process (Bamforth and Leyland 2013). It involves the justification of an actor's performance of one's duties towards others to whom accounts are owed, through the use of standards to measure one's performance and with possible consequences for the actor if the standards are not met (Bovens 2004, pp. 447-448; Nollkaemper and Curtin 2007, p. 4). Accountability has traditionally operated on two levels: the practical and the ethical (Bishman 2016, p. 2). As digital technology has essentially reconfigured the features of the constitutional environment and, more broadly,

1 Joshi (2017) mentions the examples of former President Donald Trump (United States), President Narendra Modi (India), and President Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines).

the relation between society and technology, accountability is also firmly connected at present to the degree to which regulatory systems that are applicable online consider public values and ethical commitments. Additionally, with private entities emerging alongside states as actors involved in the governance of online public space, the process of being called to account for one's actions becomes equally relevant for both sets of actors but within a different governance constellation when compared with a state-citizen frame. This new constellation requires new normative perspectives on principles and processes that are applicable to the digital setting, which is of interest to this discussion (Marshaw 2006). In more contemporary terms, holding one to account not only carries the obligation to disclose information and justify one's actions; it also presupposes a social relationship between the actor and the relevant accountability forum (Nollkaemper and Curtin 2007, p. 8). As an inherently relational concept, accountability is built around transparency, control, punishment, and restoration.

Particularly for the purposes of this contribution, transparency is approached as the degree of asymmetry of information between the actor that owes accountability as opposed to the actor to which the account is owed (Bishman 2016, p. 3). The transparency objective more specifically allows access to the way that an actor exercises decision-making and attains certain outcomes. In other words, it operates as a criterion for the extent to which accountability is pursued. Normatively, transparency can also be connected to the improvement of the quality of decision-making by actors, an increase in citizen participation and the cultivation of trust, and (legal) empowerment and the realisation of individual rights (Buijze 2013, pp. 4—5, 7). When applied to digital governance, legal scientific knowledge of the empirical functions of transparency (along with its effects), as discussed in this chapter, is incomplete and still evolving. Ultimately, the concept of accountability is used as extending beyond describing a process to exploring a practice linked to democracy, dialogue, responsibility, and responsiveness (Rock 2017).

From the perspective of fundamental rights, the digital age has particularly affected the way(s) that freedom of expression is exercised. In more ways than one, social media platforms are now in a position to moderate the flow of information in the digital public square. In the words of Mark Zuckerberg, “in a lot of ways Facebook is more like a government than a traditional company” (cited by Langvardt 2018, p. 1357), touching even intimate aspects of its users” lives. Through digital methods of surveillance of citizens using the internet or through ways to censor online expressions, accountability is currently also linked to the “manufacture [of] consent, sabotage [of] dissent’, and the broader shaping of public opinion (Joshi 2017). Within such a framework, online platforms are the battlefields of such accountability concerns. However, to what extent does a digital society relying on algorithms challenge democratic frameworks? More specifically, in what ways does the role of content moderation afforded to (private) social media companies constitute a challenge to accountability? To address these questions, it is useful to first approach the concept of content moderation. According to Flew et al. (2019, p. 40), content moderation can be defined as “the screening, evaluation, categorization, approval or removal/hiding of online content according to relevant communications and publishing policies”. Such moderation can occur before or after the publication of online content. The constitutional dimension of moderation is directly linked to accountability mechanisms. This is because of its heavy reliance on both automated resources (e.g., prioritisation, geo-blocking) and human ones to fulfil its moderation tasks, with limited clarity on the division of tasks between humans and machines. However, for accountability assessment purposes, the constitutional tension in most instances arises from information technology (IT) platforms’ commitment to protect free speech while fulfilling a business purpose (De Gregorio 2020, p. 3). The combination of the concern to maintain a business-friendly digital ecosystem with the upholding of fundamental rights is precisely the starting point of accountability concerns.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that online platforms, understood (for the purposes of this analysis) as providers hosting third-party content, have a responsibility but not a full-fledged duty to guarantee fundamental rights and freedoms, in contrast to states. As such, the need to balance various constitutional interests, particularly in the European context, has effectively led to the transformation of the online public space from an opportunity to exercise such rights/freedoms to a potential risk of curtailing them (Pollicino 2019). The activation of such risk is triggered not only by the special characteristics of the online public sphere or the change in the regulating actors but also by the concentration of online moderation powers to a limited number of online platforms, coupled with the expanding use of artificial intelligence (AI).

The evolution of the role of online platforms in online content governance is understandably in flux at present; private entities, such as Facebook, have begun to acknowledge their *broader social responsibility to combat polarisation and extremism (Zuckerberg 2018). This task should also be placed in correlation to the amount of content in need of moderation? The magnitude of the produced content has provoked numerous discussions around the subjectivity of decision-making related to the vast number of online expressions, particularly in the sensitive areas of hate speech and the fight against misinformation.

The idiosyncratic character of online speech moderation does not stop here. The speed, anonymity, volume, and platform dependence of online expressions make enforcement through state judicial mechanisms unrealistic. Instead, moderators in international call centres, typically located in the Philippines, Ireland, Singapore, India, or Eastern Europe (Langvardt 2018, p. 1362), are called to assess and qualify online speech. In sum, the current governance dynamics in online content moderation point to systemic deficiencies in the aspects of rule of law and due process guarantees and, by extension, to accountability and transparency.

Specifically, in the field of freedom of expression, content moderation requires the exercise of judicial balancing (between competing rights and interests) and public enforcement of measures, usually carried out by state actors (de Gregorio

2 According to Zuckerberg (2018), Facebook alone has reviewed two million pieces of content on a daily basis.

2019). Several layers of accountability concerns emerge as a result of the delegation of powers from the state to private actors of this nature: when regulating online speech, private companies (1.e., social media platforms) propose and apply their own standards of protection, usually in the form of their own internal community standards, terms of use, or policies. These standards, including the ways that they are applied by content moderators, often remain obscure and unsuitable for a democratically accountable public activity (Langvardt 2018, p. 1356). Furthermore, as the balancing of rights and interests is performed and enforced by social media companies themselves, they also indirectly decide which right prevails in each case. Per the current European Union (EU) legal framework, these same non-state actors can be held neither accountable nor responsible for hosting third-party content? (provided that certain conditions are met), thus indirectly allowing the risk of proliferation, expansion and flourishing of hateful expressions. In terms of the review of platforms” decisions to remove content, there is often little in terms of transparency on how appeal processes are performed and reviewed (Culliford 2020). Resolving disputes between users and platforms then becomes an element that is tightly connected to accountability. Appeals on any contested decisions submitted to independent bodies also require the existence of dispute resolution procedures, guaranteeing transparency and impartiality. This last concern appears to be reconsidered by measures such as the recent appointment of Facebook's Oversight Board, which will act as an appeals instance and will be able to overturn the company's decisions on whether individual pieces of content should be allowed on Facebook and Instagram.* Overall, responding to accountability concerns seems to be an ongoing, multifaceted process, where platforms are developing and refining their rules and standards as circumstances require and in the light of evolving events.