On Tuesday, Trump launched a web page to share messages that readers can then re-post to their Facebook or Twitter accounts. — Reuters picSAN FRANCISCO, May 6 ― Facebook Inc's oversight board yesterday upheld the company's suspension of former US President Donald Trump but said the company was wrong to make the suspension indefinite and gave it six months to determine a “proportionate response.
The board, created by Facebook to rule on a small slice of its content decisions, said the company was right to ban Trump following the January 6 storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters. “Indefinite penalties of this sort do not pass the international or American smell test for clarity, consistency, and transparency,” said former federal Judge Michael McConnell, co-chair of the Oversight Board, during a press conference after publishing its decision on Wednesday.
The board said Facebook's existing policies, such as deciding when material is too newsworthy to remove, need to be more clearly communicated to users. It also called on Facebook to develop a policy that governs how it handles novel situations where its existing rules would be insufficient to prevent imminent harm. See takeaways from the board's decision.
At a Financial Times conference after the verdict, Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president of global affairs and communication, said the company would hope to resolve the matter “considerably faster” than six months. At the time of the suspension, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said “the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.” The company later referred the case to its recently established board, which includes academics, lawyers and rights activists.