Facebook’s independent Oversight Board selected the social media company’s referral regarding former President Donald Trump being banned after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and opened the case for public comment, the company announced Friday.
Facebook referred the case to the board on Jan. 21, saying its “decision to suspend former President Trump was right, but we don’t think we should make these calls on our own.” Trump’s access to his account will remain suspended through the board’s deliberation, but it opens the possibility for Trump to regain access to his account.
If the board overturns Facebook’s decision, the decision would be binding, meaning that no one at Facebook can suspend Trump’s account without citing a new offense.
The Oversight Board accepts public comments on the cases it selects for deliberation but said for Trump’s case, the period for public comment will be extended to 10 days, and the board “has provided guiding questions along with the case descriptions,” according to an Oversight Board spokesperson.
Facebook and other social media platforms, including Twitter, Twitch, and YouTube, suspended Trump’s accounts after pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol in an attack that left five dead. The social media companies alleged that Trump incited and encouraged the violence.
Facebook cited two posts when it suspended Trump’s account, one in which he wrote, “I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us.” The second post read: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously viciously stripped away from great patriots have been badly unfairly treated for so long.”
“On January 7, 2021, after further review of President Trump’s posts, his recent communications outside of Facebook, and additional information about the severity of the violence at the Capitol, Facebook ‘extend[ed] the block’ it placed on his accounts ‘indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete,’ publicly citing President Trump’s ‘use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government,'” the board’s case summary reads. “However, Facebook has not yet clarified the nature of these restrictions.”
The board has up to 90 days from accepting the case to make a ruling, but a spokesman told CNN that “we expect to act more quickly than that.”
