Trump’s Facebook ban should not be lifted, network’s oversight board rules
Donald Trump’s Facebook account should not be reinstated, the social media giant’s oversight board said on Wednesday, barring an imminent return to the platform.
However, the board has punted the final decision over Trump’s account back to Facebook itself, suggesting the platform make a decision in six months regarding what to do with Trump’s account and whether it will be permanently deleted.
Facebook suspended Trump’s account after the Capitol attack of 6 January, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress in an attempt to overturn the former president’s defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump was initially suspended from Facebook and Instagram for 24 hours, as a result of two posts shared to the platform in which he appeared to praise the actions of the rioters. The company then extended the president’s ban “at least until the end of his time in office”.
His account was suspended indefinitely pending the decision of the oversight board, a group of appointed academics and former politicians meant to operate independently of Facebook’s corporate leadership.
The board assigned ultimate responsibility to the social media company regarding whether the account will be given a reinstatement date and said Facebook must complete its review of this matter within six months. It said Facebook failed to impose proper penalties against Trump for violating its policies.
Trump lashed out against Facebook and other social media giants in response to the decision on Wednesday, saying such companies “must pay a political price” for suspending his accounts. “What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country,” Trump said in a statement. “The People of our Country will not stand for it!”
Facebook typically removes violating content from an account, imposing a time-bound period of
suspension, or permanently disables the page and account. Trump’s account remains on Facebook with a number of older posts still live.
“It was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension,” the oversight board said in a statement. “The board insists that Facebook review this matter to determine and justify a proportionate response that is consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform.”
The board defines its mission as “to promote free expression by making principled, independent decisions regarding content on Facebook and Instagram and by issuing recommendations on the relevant Facebook company content policy”.
Members include Helle ThorningSchmidt, a former prime minister of Denmark; Jamal Greene, a Columbia law professor; Tawakkol Karman, a Nobel peace prize winner from Yemen; and Alan Rusbridger, a former editor of the Guardian.
But critics have said Facebook should have made its own decisions rather than using the body. They have also argued that the board is “designed and bankrolled by Facebook”, calling in question its full independence.
In February a group of scholars, advocates and activists calling itself the Real Facebook Oversight Board said: “Real oversight must be combined with other critically needed reforms: laws that change financial incentives for big tech, heavy regulation and a reckoning with the algorithms that are laying waste to democratic society.”
In response to the announcement on Wednesday, the Real Oversight Board said the decision proves “the Facebook oversight board experiment has failed”.
“This verdict is a desperate attempt to have it both ways, upholding the ‘ban’ of Donald Trump without actually banning him, while punting any real decisions back to Facebook,” the group said.
Campaigners have pushed for Trump’s suspension to be made permanent, pointing at the importance of the platform for the former president in pushing his message.
In February, Change the Terms, a coalition of more than 60 human rights groups, said: “The board must acknowledge that Trump’s social media presence has made not just Facebook users but the entire world less safe.”
Following the Capitol riot, Trump was suspended from several major tech platforms, including Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat. Twitter has since made its ban permanent. YouTube’s CEO said in March that platform would lift it suspension when the risk of violence decreases.
Five people including a police officer died as a direct result of the Capitol attack and more than 400 people have been charged in connection with it.
In a speech outside the White House before the riot on 6 January, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to advance his lie that his defeat was the product of massive electoral fraud, a claim repeatedly laughed out of court. Democrats in Congress impeached Trump for inciting an insurrection. He was acquitted when only seven Republicans voted with Democrats to convict.