Facebook Bans Donald Trump Through at Least Jan. 7, 2023

Facebook responded to the ruling on former President Donald Trump by its independent content oversight board, paving the way for his potential return to Facebook and Instagram Jan. 7, 2023—two years from the date when his accounts were suspended. The oversight board weighed in last month, upholding the social network’s decision to suspend for his role in inciting the violence at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, but calling Facebook’s indefinite suspension of Trump arbitrary and leaving the decision on the length of the suspension up to Facebook. Facebook responded Friday by detailing its policies on public figures and civil unrest in its Transparency Center, saying factors that may be considered in determining penalties include: The severity of the violation and the public figure’s history on Facebook or Instagram, including current and past violations.The public figure’s potential influence over, and relationship to, the individuals engaged in violence.The severity of the violence and any related physical harm. The social network said the most common penalty will be a one-month restriction from creating content, with bans of six months, one year or two years in severe cases, meaning that Trump received the maximum punishment under the new policy. Once that time is served, Facebook said, “At the end of the restriction period, we’ll look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded. We’ll evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of global or civil unrest. If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we’ll extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded.” Vice president of global affairs Nick Clegg elaborated in a Newsroom post Friday, “When the suspension is eventually lifted, there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if Mr. Trump commits further violations in future, up to and including permanent removal of his pages and accounts." Trump’s potential return date of Jan. 7, 2023, sparked concerns that he may use Facebook and Instagram to once again challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and influence the 2024 vote. Common Sense founder and CEO James P. Steyer said in a statement, “Once again, Facebook fails to do the right thing to protect our democracy. A two-year ban gets us past the 2022 election cycle, but does not protect Americans from his interference in the next presidential election, which is why Facebook should, and can, permanently ban Trump. He incited a violent attack on our Capitol that resulted in five deaths. There is no justification to ever reinstate Trump on Facebook. Period. Facebook cannot be trusted to make decisions in the best interest of our society, which is why we need a comprehensive tech agenda for the country that will protect Americans.” The non-Facebook-affiliated group that bills itself as the Real Facebook Oversight Board called Friday’s decision “accountability theater” and said in a statement, “While many people will breathe a sigh of relief today that Facebook has banned Donald Trump for a further two years, this decision only goes to underline the enormous, unchecked power of Facebook and its repeated failure to police its platform. Donald Trump and his allies used Facebook to incite an insurrection and attempted coup of the U.S. government. The punishment: Back on Facebook just in time for Trump 2024, with no explanation at all why a two-year ban, or what the criteria is for determining his status when the ban expires.” Clegg said in a podcast with Richard Reeves of think tank Brookings Institution, “Many people will say, ‘Well hang on a minute: What happens in two years’ time if Donald Trump comes back on Facebook and tries to do it all over again?’ So, we are accompanying this announcement with a clear ladder of sanctions up to and including, in the most extreme cases, permanent removal from Facebook such that when he returns to Facebook, there are clear sanctions that will apply rapidly if he or indeed everyone else seeks to try and repeat these violations.” And Facebook said in its detailed response to the oversight board that it expanded its research initiatives to better understand how Facebook and Instagram can impact elections, partnering with over 20 outside academics. Facebook wrote, “We are appalled by the events of Jan. 6. We continually review whether and how we adjust our policies to combat misinformation and hate—and we agree that it is appropriate this process takes into account the events of Jan. 6. Our work to improve Facebook is never complete, and we continually review our policies and practices in the face of evolving threats, changing tactics by malicious actors and new situations in the world. Ultimately, though, we believe that independent researchers and our democratically elected officials are best positioned to complete an objective review of these events.” In further responses to recommendations by the oversight board, Facebook also clarified how it implements its strike system for violations of its policies, as well as sharing more details on its newsworthiness allowance. Clegg wrote in his Newsroom post, “We grant our newsworthiness allowance to a small number of posts on our platform. Moving forward, we will begin publishing the rare instances when we apply it. Finally, when we assess content for newsworthiness, we will not treat content posted by politicians any differently from content posted by anyone else. Instead, we will simply apply our newsworthiness balancing test in the same way to all content, measuring whether the public interest value of the content outweighs the potential risk of harm by leaving it up.” He concluded, “We know that any penalty we apply—or choose not to apply—will be controversial. There are many people who believe it was not appropriate for a private company like Facebook to suspend an outgoing president from its platform, and many others who believe Mr. Trump should have immediately been banned for life. We know today’s decision will be criticized by many people on opposing sides of the political divide—but our job is to make a decision in as proportionate, fair and transparent a way as possible, in keeping with the instruction given to us by the oversight board.” Indeed, an example of the criticism Clegg mentioned came from Media Research Center president and Free Speech America founder Brent Bozell, who said in a statement, “Facebook’s ruling on former President Donald Trump is just the latest evidence that Big Tech wields far too much power. Leftist Facebook executives weren’t satisfied with interfering with the 2020 election. Now, they want to interfere with the 2024 campaign by kneecapping Trump before he can even get started. Facebook’s new policy for politicians sets itself as the sole ruling body determining who can campaign to its nearly 3 billion customers. Americans need to prove to Big Tech that we are more powerful than they are while we still can.”

Politics

Facebook Bans Donald Trump Through at Least Jan. 7, 2023

The 2-year restriction on creating content is the harshest penalty under its new rules regarding public figures, civil unrest

David Cohen

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David Cohen