Facebook Board Reviewing Donald Trump Ban
Seeks public comment on decision to silence president
Facebook's oversight board said it will be soliciting comment on the platform's decision to indefinitely suspend former President Donald Trump from Facebook and Instagram.
His accounts were pulled Jan. 7 after the Capitol insurrection and his use of his online platform "to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time.
Also Read: Sen. Markey Says Facebook Apparently Used to Plan Insurrection
The independent board was created by Facebook to review its decisions on what content to take down or leave up, and why. Its decisions are binding.
The board announced its first decisions last month and at the same time signaled it would be reviewing the decision about President Trump's accounts.
Also Read: Reps Urge Big Tech to Tackle Algorithmic Extremism
"Recent events in the United States and around the world have highlighted the enormous impact that content decisions taken by internet services have on human rights and free expression. The challenges and limitations of the existing approaches to moderating content draw attention to the value of independent oversight of the most consequential decisions by companies such as Facebook."
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Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.