Facebook and Instagram suspend Donald Trump's accounts for two years
Last month, the Oversight Board confirmed the suspension by Facebook of the Facebook and Instagram accounts of former United States President Donald Trump, following his praise for those who participated in acts of violence on Capitol Hill on September 6. January.
But in doing so, the board criticized the indefinite nature of the suspension, stating that "it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and non-judgmental sanction of the indefinite suspension."
The council tasked us with reviewing the decision and responding in a clear and proportionate way, and made us a series of recommendations on how to improve our policies and processes, he added.
From Facebook they announced the new execution protocols that will be applied in exceptional cases like this one, and confirmed that the sanction of limited duration consistent with those protocols that will apply to Donald Trump's accounts.
Nick Clegg, Vice President of Facebook, stated that “given the gravity of the circumstances that led to the suspension of Mr. Trump, we believe that his actions constituted a serious violation of our rules that deserve the highest sanction available under the new protocols of app. We are going to suspend his accounts for two years, from the date of the initial suspension, on January 7 of this year ”.
At the end of this period, they will call on experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has decreased. They will assess external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly, and other indicators of civil unrest.
If Facebook determines that there is still a serious risk to public safety, it will extend the restriction for a specified period of time and will reassess until the risk has subsided.
Clegg also stated that, “when the suspension is lifted, there will be a strict set of rapidly progressing sanctions that will be triggered if Mr. Trump commits new infractions in the future, up to the permanent deletion of his pages and accounts and that at establish the two-year sanction for serious infractions, we have considered the need for it to be long enough to allow a safe period of time after incitement acts, which is significant enough to deter Mr. Trump and others committing such serious infractions in the future, and that is proportional to the seriousness of the infraction itself ”.
From Facebook they are aware that any sanction applied will generate controversy and that although, many people who believe that it was not appropriate for a private company like Facebook to suspend an outgoing president from its platform, and many others who believe that Mr. Trump should having been immediately banned for life, they know that today's decision will be criticized by many people on opposite sides of the political divide, but that their job is to make a decision in the most proportionate, fair and transparent way possible, in accordance with the instruction given to them by the Supervisory Board.
