Donald Trump ban upheld by Facebook ‘supreme court’ as former president brands company ‘a disgrace’

Facebook must decide whether to allow Donald Trump back online within six months after its independent appeals board issued a landmark ruling upholding the former president's ban.

The Facebook Oversight Board, set up and funded by the social network to as a final arbiter for its moderation decisions, said it was right to suspend Mr Trump from Facebook and Instagram after his supporters stormed the US capitol building in an attempt to overturn his election defeat.

But it heavily criticised Facebook's "arbitrary" punishment of an indefinite suspension, which it called "vague and standardless", and ordered Facebook to decide a new remedy within six months, opening the door to Mr Trump's account being restored.

It excoriated Facebook for attempting to dodge responsibility over Mr Trump's case and for failing to apply the same clear rules to Mr Trump as it applies to any other users.

It also formally recommended that Facebook publish a "comprehensive" report about its own role in spreading the election fraud misinformation that sparked January's violence in Washington DC.

The board's ruling pushes the onus for Mr Trump's accounts back to Facebook, at a time of fierce debate over the power of social media companies to police political leaders' speech.

Mr Trump issued a standard broadside in a statement following the ruling yesterday, calling Facebook, Twitter and Google's behaviour "a total disgrace" and saying the companies "must pay a political price".

"Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth," he said.

Watershed moment for Facebook's supreme court'

The criticisms were echoed by Republicans in Congress, who vowed to act to reign in "big tech power over our speech". Meanwhile Steny Hoyer, the Democratic House majority leader, said the ruling showed "Facebook is not the public square".

The White House also appeared to weigh in on the issue yesterday when it said social media platforms have a responsibility to "stop amplifying untrustworthy content".

Facebook's global PR and lobbying chief Sir Nick Clegg said Mr Trump would remain suspended while the company considered a "clear and proportionate" next course of action.

He said: "We believe our decision was necessary and right, and we’re pleased the board has recognised that the unprecedented circumstances justified the exceptional measure we took."

Facebook is not legally bound by the board, but has publicly committed to honour its rulings about specific decisions and to respond to recommendations within 30 days.

The decision is a watershed moment for the body, first floated by Facebook's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in late 2018 as a social media "supreme court" and opening for business two weeks before the 2020 US election.

Some critics have lambasted it as a "fig leaf" designed to distract from Facebook's autocratic global power, while others have watched it closely as a barometer of the company's willingness to accept reform.

A permanent ban would have a major impact on Mr Trump's ability to run for president again after last November's defeat. Social media interactions about him have dropped by 90pc since January, according to data from NewsWhip reported by Axios, while web traffic to news stories fell by an estimated 95pc.

The case was supposed to be resolved by April 21, but was pushed back after his allies and enemies mounted a massive lobbying campaign resulting in more than 9,000 public comments.

Facebook's rules branded a 'bewildering mess'

Mr Trump was first suspended from Facebook and Instagram on January 7. At the time, Mr Zuckerberg said it had taken the extraordinary step because Mr Trump had used the platform "to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government".

Yet the board's judgement noted that indefinite suspensions do not appear in Facebook's rules, and that its normal punishments include banning people permanently, banning people for a specific time or removing their content but leaving their account online.

Board co-chair Michael McConnell, one of the panel's few prominent conservative members, rebuked Facebook for effectively leaving it to the board to decide Mr Trump's punishment.

He said: "We hold that it was improper – that is to say, in violation of Facebook's own rules, as well as generally accepted principles of freedom of expression – for Facebook to make that suspension indefinite.

"It 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. Users must not be left in a state of uncertainty...

"We are not cops ranging over the realm of social media and solving the world's bills. Our sole job is to hold this extremely powerful corporation accountable for making clear, consistent and transparent decisions, showing neither fear nor favour for persons of political influence."

Co-chair Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former prime minister of Denmark, added that Facebook "cannot invent new unwritten rules when it suits them".

The board's ruling also criticised the company for failing to explain its "newsworthiness" exceptions, which allow some posts by public figures to stay online even if they break the rules, and recommended a clearer policy on how to deal with global leaders in future.

"This is not the only case where Facebook has engaged in ad-hockery," said Mr McConnell, saying the board has received more than 20,000 appeals from users who find its enforcement "a bewildering mess".

Facebook told the board that it had never applied the newsworthiness exemption to any of Mr Trump's posts. It said it had previously reviewed 25 of his previous pieces of content and removed five of them.

It claimed it had suspended Mr Trump for breaking its rules on supporting dangerous organisation. However, those rules appeared nowhere in Mr Zuckerberg's Jan 7 post or a later statement by Sir Nick, both of which used language more suggestive of Facebook's rules against incitement.

Decision pleases nobody in Washington

The board's ruling met bipartisan dismissal in Washington DC. The conservative Heritage Foundation said Facebook's ban exemplified Big Tech's ability to "suppress viewpoints it finds objectionable", though it lauded the board for criticising Facebook's vague rules.

Media Matters for America, a left-leaning think tank that led successful boycotts against Fox News, said the decision was right but called the decision "win for Facebook’s efforts to further shirk responsibility".

The Real Facebook Oversight Board, a protest group including leaders of last year's Facebook advertising boycott, said: "Today’s decision shows that the Facebook Oversight Board experiment has failed. This verdict is a desperate attempt to have it both ways."

All three groups, along with Amnesty International, called for greater government regulation of social media.

In past decisions, the board has made a point of flexing its muscles, upbraiding Facebook for opaque rules, capricious enforcement and unaccountable use of artificial intelligence. Last week it overturned the removal of a post criticising India's ruling party, saying it had acted disproportionately.

On Tuesday, just before the ruling, Mr Trump launched a new communication site billed in a movie-trailer-like video as "a place to speak freely and safely" in "a time of silence".

Effectively a blog, it features tweet-like messages and standard social media sharing buttons along with a donation page. Advisers have hinted at a new Trump-branded social network that would "redefine the game".

As of Tuesday night, the new tool did not include Mr Trump's statement about the Oversight Board's decision.

This story was originally published at 11:15am on Wednesday May 5, 2021, and updated as events developed.