Facebook’s independent oversight body on Wednesday confirmed the platform’s ban on former US President Donald Trump in a case that sets a precedent for how social media deals with harmful content from world leaders.
Facebook blocked Trump’s access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely amid concerns over further violent unrest following the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of the former president.
At the time of the suspension, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg said in a post that “the risk that the president will continue to use our service during this time is simply too great”.
The company later referred the case to its recently established board of directors, which includes academics, lawyers and legal activists, to decide whether to uphold the ban or restore Trump.
“Both decisions are not win decisions for Facebook,” said Kate Klonick, an assistant professor of law at St. John’s University who embed herself with Facebook to follow up on the board’s creation. “Outsourcing to a third party, the oversight board, is a win for them, no matter what.”
The binding judgment is an important decision for the board, which decides on a small part of challenging content decisions and which Facebook created as an independent body in response to criticism of the handling of problematic material. Facebook has also asked the board to make recommendations on how to deal with the accounts of political leaders.
Tech platforms have grappled with the question of how to monitor world leaders and politicians who violate their guidelines for the past few years.
Facebook has come under fire from both those who feel it should abandon its approach to political speech and those who viewed the Trump ban as a worrying act of censorship.
Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter Inc, where he has more than 88 million followers.
Trump, who sent out short press releases via email, continued to promote misinformation in elections in a press release on Monday, saying, “the
The fraudulent 2020 presidential election will be known as THE BIG LIE from that day! “
On Tuesday, he launched a new website to share news, which readers can then repost on their Facebook or Twitter accounts. A senior advisor said Trump also has plans to launch his own social media platform.
Facebook has said that Trump, who has 35 million Facebook followers, would follow the same guidelines as regular users after his presidency ended. This means that if Trump returned to the platform, his contributions would now be eligible for fact-checking. After expanding the scope of the board of directors in April, Facebook users could also appeal the contributions of the former chairman to the board of directors.
Trump’s suspension was the first time Facebook blocked a current president, prime minister or head of state. Facebook’s board of directors said it had received more than 9,000 comments from the public on the Trump ban, the most it had so far on a case.
Several scholars and civil rights groups have publicly shared their letters urging the board to permanently block Trump, while Republican lawmakers and some free speech advocates criticized the decision.
“I would hope you think about the precedents too,” said Katie Harbath, a former public policy director for Facebook and a member of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington DC. “What does it look like internationally, how does it look in the long term?” She added.
The Oversight Board, an idea that Zuckerberg first announced publicly in 2018, currently has 20 members, including former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and several legal experts and lawyers. Decisions only require the consent of the majority.
The board, which some have dubbed Facebook’s “Supreme Court”, has been hailed as a novel experiment by some researchers but criticized by other critics who were skeptical of its independence or viewed it as a PR stunt to divert the company’s attention It’s more of a systemic problem.
Funded by a $ 130 million trust created by Facebook, it has so far made decisions on a small number of cases, from hate speech to nudity.
(With contributions from agencies)
