Facebook’s independent Oversight Board is reviewing the company’s decision to suspend President Trump’s account for posts he made after the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Facebook cited two offending posts. In one, he wrote: “I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us.” The second post read: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously viciously stripped away from great patriots have been badly unfairly treated for so long.”
After banning Trump, Facebook lost $47.6 billion in market cap value. And Twitter, which also banned him, lost $3.5 billion of its value.
The Washington Examiner reported the Oversight Board is reviewing the suspension after Facebook said the decision “was right, but we don’t think we should make these calls on our own.”
The board’s decision will be binding.
The Examiner said the Oversight Board accepts public comments on the cases it selects for deliberation. For Trump’s case, the comment period will be extended to 10 days, a spokesman said.
Facebook claimed Trump used its platform “to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.”
But constitutional experts contend Trump’s statements were protected by the First Amendment, and there’s no evidence of intent, as required for an incitement charge. If fact, Trump called for his supporters to act “peacefully.”
House Democrats and 10 Republicans voted to impeach Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection without allowing time for evidence and witnesses. Senate Democrats are scheduling a constitutionally suspect trial in an effort to prevent him from ever running for office again.
The censorship of Trump has drawn criticism from foreign leaders, including Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who called it an “egregious violation and alarming precedent-setting abuse of power by Twitter and Facebook.”
Facebook’s board includes a variety of left-wing activists, such as Tawakkol Karman, who claimed before the election that when Trump left office, “hate” will vanish.
The Western Journal reported three-fourths of the board members are not from the United States, meaning they aren’t necessarily guided by the First Amendment.
Via Wnd