The fight is on over former President Trump’s banishment from Facebook as its oversight board decides whether to keep Mr. Trump in social media exile.
Liberal groups are pressuring Facebook’s Oversight Board to keep Mr. Trump blocked, while his supporters push for the ban to be lifted.
Facebook booted Mr. Trump temporarily in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and later decided to keep him off its platforms indefinitely. The company referred the former president’s banishment to the oversight board, which was created to review content enforcement and governance decisions on Facebook.
While organized as a separate entity, the board operates with a $130 million trust from Facebook, and Mr. Trump’s case is the first major test of the board’s utility. Amid a call for public comments on what the board should consider, liberals have urged the board to keep Mr. Trump banned.
The Real Facebook Oversight Board, a left-leaning group challenging the actual oversight board’s usefulness, urged the board not to “strike the match” by allowing Mr. Trump’s return.
The liberal group, which counts Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe and Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt as signatories, wrote to the oversight board that it is worried the group is about to toss out the ban on Mr. Trump.
“Donald Trump poses a clear and present danger to democracy and human life. He is unrepentant. He continues to deny the outcome of the election. He has used Facebook to profit from his lies about the election,” the liberal group wrote. “When social media amplifies his hateful rhetoric and disinformation, it is guilty of collaboration. Some may say this is an issue of free speech. They are wrong.”
Another group led by University of California-Irvine professor Richard L. Hasen also argued that banning Mr. Trump was warranted. The group, which includes former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos, told the oversight board in a letter obtained by Politico that it thought Facebook had acted correctly.
“Removal of a political leader from the platforms should be strongly disfavored, and it should be a last resort given the great benefits of robust political debate and protection for political and election-related speech. But Trump’s actions justified the step of indefinitely deplatforming him,” the group of professors wrote. “Over many months, Trump consistently undermined public confidence in the fairness of the 2020 U.S. election results based upon false and discredited theories of voter fraud, and he encouraged violent insurrection on January 6, 2021, as Congress engaged in the formal process of counting the Electoral College votes and declaring Joe Biden the winner over Trump of the presidential election.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s defenders in the House wrote to the oversight board urging it to rethink Facebook’s actions. Rep. Ken Buck, Colorado Republican, said on Twitter he wrote to the oversight board with several GOP colleagues to urge the board to ensure equal treatment.
“If Big Tech can censor President Trump, they can do it to you, too,” Mr. Buck tweeted.
The oversight board has not publicly set a date for when it will rule on Mr. Trump’s ban.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.