Last Updated on February 23, 2021
Facebook has received a “user statement” relating to the indefinite ban of President Trump from the social media platform last month.
Following the protests at Capitol Hill on January 6th, President Trump was first temporarily, and then indefinitely, banned from Facebook, with the Big Tech giant claiming that he had incited violence. As National File reported:
Despite censoring the President’s calls for an end to protestors’ efforts to breach the Capitol (which was ordered closed to the public ahead of electoral vote certification), Zuckerberg went on to claim that President Trump had used Facebook “to condone rather then condemn the actions of his supporters.”
In announcing the ban, Zuckerberg claimed that President Trump had used Facebook to “incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government,” and that allowing him to continue to communicate with the American people had been deemed too risky.
“We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.”
On Tuesday, the UK’s Channel 4 News reported that Facebook’s Oversight Board, the supposedly independent entity that regulates the site, had received a “user statement” relating to the ban of President Trump. Such a statement would have been sent by the administrators of President Trump’s page, appealing the indefinite ban.
The Facebook Oversight Board had been handed President Trump’s case in January, not long after the initial ban. The spokeswoman, who confirmed the existence of the user statement, said that the board would not be making any more comment until they had come to a decision on the ban.
President Trump was banned and suspended by a number of other Big Tech companies during his last few weeks in his office, most notably Twitter, which was one of the first to boot the sitting President off their platform. Last week, Trump said in a phone interview with NewsMax that Twitter had become “very boring” since he was removed, noting that “millions of people” were leaving.
This is a breaking story, and may be updated with more information.
