Facebook has said it wants the supervisory board’s binding ruling on the matter, given its significance.
“We think it’s important for the board to review this and make an independent ruling or to uphold it,” wrote Nick Clegg, Facebook’s VP of Global Affairs. “While we wait for the council’s decision, Mr. Trump’s access will remain indefinitely suspended.”
John Taylor, a spokesman for the Facebook supervisory board, told CNN Business that the board would have 90 days under its framework to review the decision, but “we expect to act faster than that.”
Facebook and Instagram banned Trump’s account from posting for at least the rest of his term and perhaps ‘indefinitely’ after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building to protest the election. Twitter, Trump’s preferred social media platform, has banned him permanently.
In a blog post, the supervisory board said Trump or his page administrators will be able to submit their feedback on the Facebook decision to the board as it considers upholding or overturning Facebook’s decision.
“The supervisory board started at the end of 2020 to address exactly the kind of issues raised by this matter,” the board said. “The Council is set up to conduct a critical independent inquiry into Facebook’s approach to the most challenging content issues, which has enormous implications for global human rights and free expression.”
Jamal Greene, a co-chair of the Supervisory Board, told CNN Business that the matter can be viewed and decided through three main lenses: whether Trump’s content is really in conflict with Facebook’s own platform policy; whether Facebook’s decision is consistent with its own stated values; and whether Trump’s suspension largely complies with – or suppresses – international human rights principles.
Kate Klonick, an assistant professor of law at St. review laws and government action
Given the tendency of social media platforms to follow the leader on consequent content enforcement decisions, the ruling of the Supervisory Board could have major consequences, according to Evelyn Douek, a lecturer at Harvard University Law School.
“There is currently no greater question in content moderation than whether Trump’s exhaustion is the beginning of a new era in how companies police their platforms,” she wrote in a blog post. “The past few weeks have also shown that what one platform does over the Internet can ripple. … For all these reasons, the council’s decision on Trump’s case could affect much more than one Facebook page.”