Groups Tell Facebook Board to Make Trump Ban Permanent
Facebook’s oversight board should permanently ban former President Donald Trump from the platform, advocates commented this week (see 2101280055). A permanent ban would “show others that this kind of hateful and harmful speech will not be tolerated on Facebook,” said…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
Common Sense CEO Jim Steyer. Ending the ban would be “an invitation to violence, hate and disinformation that will cost lives and undermine democracy,” said Common Sense in an open letter to the board. Eight other advocacy groups commented with Common Sense on the case, questioning whether the board has “the authority to reinstate” the suspended account. The groups included the Anti-Defamation League, the Asian American Organizing Project, Free Press, MediaJustice and the National Hispanic Media Coalition. The board “must act in the public interest and prioritize the health and safety of our communities,” they wrote. “If the Board believes that Facebook’s insufficient protocols prevent it from affirming Trump’s suspension, then the Board should decline to resolve this matter until Facebook’s house is in order.” Access Now agreed with Trump’s removal but criticized the platform’s lack of transparency and “the uneven application of the company’s Terms of Service globally,” while drawing attention to “the platform’s powerful position in determining public discourse.” The most “important questions to ask are: How do platforms moderate content? And how do their rules regulate freedom of expression?" said Access Now Europe Policy Analyst Eliska Pirkova.