(The Post Millennial) – The Facebook Oversight Board announced their ruling today that they would uphold Facebook’s January ban on former President Trump.

Trump was banned from the platform in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot, when it was purported by mainstream media that Trump had caused the riot. The Oversight Board is funded by Facebook but is expected to operate independently of the platform.

The panel includes 20 people internationally, from academics to political leaders, who are tasked with deciding whether Facebook bans on content or individuals should be upheld or overruled. That board is based in London.

The board was created by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and was meant to be an independent body that would act something like the Supreme Court. It was announced in January that the Oversight Board would take up the case of the ban against the former president. Individual users can flag content to bring to the Oversight Board’s attention, as well, and the board has elucidated its process for handling claims and reports.

After the Capitol riot, the US House of Representatives brought impeachment charges against the departing President Trump. Those charges passed the Democrat-controlled House, but the Senate declined to take up the charges in their chamber.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was adamant that Trump should not be banned while he was president, though his posts were flagged repeatedly, with warning labels placed over them. Once Trump was out of office, he was removed from the platform he had used throughout his presidency to communicate with the public.

Dorsey defended the ban, but ultimately said that the need to institute a ban was a failure of Twitter for not having been able to promote amicable and reasoned dialogue on the platform.

Since his removal from these social media platforms, Trump has taken up micro-blogging on his own platform, in addition to releasing messages via his Save America PAC through email.

The Oversight Board reported that they had received more than 9,000 public responses about Trump’s indefinite suspension from Facebook’s social media entities, which includes Instagram.

The board previously overturned five of Facebook’s rulings.

When the ban was enacted, Zuckerberg said that “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.”

The rulings of the Oversight Board are final, and Facebook has said they would respect that. This has largely to do with Zuckerberg not wanting either himself or Facebook to be liable for the decisions to ban or censor content.

thepostmillennial.com/breaking-facebook-oversight-board-trump