After Facebook’s Oversight Board decided on Wednesday to uphold Facebook’s Jan. 7 ban of former President Donald Trump’s account, Trump released a statement slamming the social media giant.
“What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country. Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth, but the truth will come out anyway, bigger and stronger than ever before. The People of our Country will not stand for it!” Trump said in a statement.
“These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process,” he added.
Trump’s statement came just more than two hours after Facebook’s Oversight Board concluded that Trump’s posts “created an environment where a serious risk of violence was possible,” but admitted that Facebook was wrong to “impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension” that went against its typical penalties and free speech.
The board noted that Facebook must review the board’s decision within six months to make a final decision on Trump’s account.
The board also urged Facebook’s upcoming review of the matter “to determine and justify a proportionate response that is consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had announced Trump’s “indefinite” suspension from both Facebook and Instagram on Jan. 7, one day after violence broke out during the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
Zuckerberg alleged that Trump was using the platform “to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol.” However, the posts and videos Trump had posted – and Facebook flagged and removed — included calls for everyone at the Capitol to “go home” and remain peaceful.
“We have to have peace, so go home. We love you, you’re very special,” Trump said in one removed video. “You’ve seen what happens, you see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace.”
The Oversight Board cited the quote, claiming it and similar language Trump used in other posts “violated Facebook’s rules prohibiting praise or support of people engaged in violence.”
