Oversight board upholds Facebook’s unfriending of Trump
Former President Donald Trump won’t return to Facebook — at least not yet.
The social network’s quasi-independent Oversight Board voted to uphold his ban from the platform after his account was suspended four months ago for inciting violence that led to the deadly January 6 Capitol riot. But in a statement, it faulted Facebook for the way it made the decision and called its “indefinite” suspension of Trump unreasonable and unworkable.
The board said Facebook sought to avoid its responsibilities by applying “a vague, standardless penalty” and then referring the case to the board to resolve.
“Indefinite penalties of this sort do not pass the international smell test,” oversight board co-chair Michael Mcconnell said. “We are not cops, reigning over the realm of social media.”
The board agreed with Facebook that two of Trump’s January 6 posts “severely violated” the content standards of both Facebook and Instagram.
“We love you. You’re very special,” he said to the rioters in the first post. In the second, he called them “great patriots”. Those violated Facebook’s rules against praising or supporting people engaged in violence, the board said.
Trump said the verdict was a “disgrace”.
“What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our country,” Trump said in a statement. “Free Speech has been taken away from the president of the United States because the radical left lunatics are afraid of the truth, but the truth will come out anyway, bigger and stronger than ever before .... The people of our country will not stand for it!”
The board gave Facebook six months to reexamine the “arbitrary penalty” it imposed on January 7 and decide on another penalty that reflects the “gravity of the violation and the prospect of future harm”.