Facebook’s Oversight Board has decided to keep Trump banned for the next six months, but not without slapping Facebook for how it handled his ban to begin with:
AP – Former President Donald Trump won’t return to Facebook — for now.
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 Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
While uploading the suspension, the board faulted Facebook for the way it made the decision.
“It was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension,” it said.
The board says Facebook has six months to reexamine the “arbitrary penalty” it imposed on Jan. 7 and decide on another penalty that reflects the “gravity of the violation and the prospect of future harm.”
The board says the new penalty must be “clear, necessary and proportionate” and consistent with Facebook’s rules for severe violations.
The board says if Facebook decides to restore Trump’s accounts, the company must be able to promptly address further violations.
In other words Trump may still be permanently banned from Facebook in the future, it’s just not happening right now. But he is still banned, at least for the next six months.
Look, I never expected Facebook to let Trump back on the platform and I still don’t. They’ll find a reason to keep him banned permanently because they don’t want him to have the level of influence he had beforehand.
However, Trump now has his own platform where people can subscribe and be informed when he posts something. So even if they did restore his account, I’m not sure he’d go back anyway.
UPDATE: Ted Cruz responds to the ban:
Disgraceful.
For every liberal celebrating Trump’s social media ban, if the Big Tech oligarchs can muzzle the former President, what’s to stop them from silencing you? https://t.co/Yky4P0B38X
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 5, 2021
UPDATE: President Trump has responded to the continuance of the ban:
What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country. 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! These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process.