The platform suspended the former president indefinitely following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, but the Oversight Board leaves the door open to Trump returning in the future.
00:00Facebook's Oversight Board is upholding the social media giant's decision to suspend President Donald Trump in the final days of his presidency.
00:08Trump was suspended indefinitely from the site and permanently banned from Twitter after he posted messages encouraging his supporters to storm the Capitol on January 6th during the Congress's confirmation of Joe Biden as the next president.
00:21In its ruling, the board wrote, given the seriousness of the violations and the ongoing risk of violence, Facebook was justified in suspending Mr. Trump's accounts on January 6th and extending that suspension on January 7th.
00:34However, despite the decision to uphold the former president's suspension, the Oversight Board, in its ruling, also left the door open to Trump returning to the platform in the future, requiring Facebook to justify the indefinite nature of the ban, writing,
00:47It is not permissible for Facebook to keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored.
00:57The board added, within six months of this decision, Facebook must re-examine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7th and decide the appropriate penalty.
01:06At the time of the suspension, Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post,
01:17Mid-concerns that tech giants are too powerful when it comes to the dissemination of speech online, Facebook in May of 2020 announced the creation of its Oversight Board.
01:37Its objective is to determine if Facebook and Instagram content is consistent with the company's policies and values,
01:44and according to the announcement, it is committed to upholding freedom of expression within the framework of international norms of human rights.
01:51For more on this story, head to THR.com.
01:53For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Neha Joy.
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