Donald Trump to remain banned from Facebook and Instagram, oversight board rules

Facebook’s independent oversight board has upheld the site’s decision to restrict former US President Donald Trump.

The social network suspended Mr Trump’s official Facebook and Instagram accounts in January after declaring he had used them to “incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government” in the Capitol Hill riots.

Mr Trump was banned either permanently or temporarily by all major social media platforms in the wake of the storming of the Capitol on 6 January, which caused the deaths of five people.

The board said that while it was upholding the company’s decision to suspend Mr Trump’s access to post content on Facebook and Instagram, it was “not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension”.

Consequently, Mr Trump will remain suspended from the platforms, but Facebook must complete its review of this matter within six months of the date of this decision.

“If Facebook decides to restore Mr. Trump’s accounts, the company should apply its rules to that decision, including any changes made in response to the board’s policy recommendations below,” the board said in a statement.

“In this scenario, Facebook must address any further violations promptly and in accordance with its established content policies.”

The decision is the largest the oversight board, which will consist of 40 civic leaders and legal, journalistic, human rights and academic experts when fully staffed, has made to date.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former prime minister of Denmark, Alan Rusbridger, former editor of The Guardian and Emi Palmor, former director general of the Israeli Justice Ministry, are among the board’s members.

Mr Trump has 32m followers on Facebook and 24m on Instagram, paling in comparison to his 88m Twitter followers (although fellow former President Barack Obama is still the platform’s most prolific user, with 130m followers).

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook chief executive, said the “shocking” violent protests in Capitol Hill clearly demonstrated that Mr Trump intended to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to Joe Biden.

“His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world,” Mr Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook.

Twitter has banned Mr Trump’s account permanently over the “risk of further incitement of violence,” saying that the ban will remain in place even if he were to run for office again.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, says it will restore his channel once it is satisfied that the risk of real-world violence has lessened.

In an effort to circumvent his reliance on the big tech companies he has long accused of favouring liberal causes, Mr Trump launched his own blog, hosting a series of brief posts criticising politicians and decrying the outcome of the 2020 US Presidential election, on Tuesday.

Jason Miller, an adviser to the former President, said that while Mr Trump’s website was a “great resource to find his latest statements and highlights from his first term in office,” details of a standalone social network would be announced “in the very near future”.

Mr Trump had been approached by numerous companies to discuss launching his own platform, Mr Miller had said in March, declaring the new service would be “the hottest ticket in social media”.

“Everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does, but it will be his own platform,” he added.

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