Facebook's Oversight Board has decided to uphold the ban on former President Trump but also ultimately gave Mark Zuckerberg's company the decision to decide on a "proportionate response."
The independent Oversight Board of tech giant Facebook on Wednesday announced that they shall uphold the ban on former President Donald Trump after his suspension in January following the attacks at Capitol Hill.
However, the Oversight Board also took aim at Facebook, saying it was wrong to impose an indefinite suspension on the former president. They ordered Facebook to come up with a "proportionate response" to the matter within the next six months.
According to Reuters, the much-anticipated verdict from Facebook's Oversight Board would determine the social network's next steps in dealing with high profile accounts that are influential enough to urge their followers to respond to a call to action. The Oversight Board also called out Facebook for failing to provide "clear standards" and was tasked to "determine a response consistent with rules applied to other users."
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt commented that while prominent political figures should be banned from inciting violence or causing harm, Facebook "can't just invent new sanctions as they go along."
"The Board declines Facebook's request and insists that Facebook apply and justify a defined penalty," the Oversight Board's decision read, as per NPR. Former President Trump who launched his own social media platform in the form of the microblog called "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump," called out Big Tech for censoring him, saying that the act was a "total disgrace" and "embarrassment" to the 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," Trump wrote in yesterday's update. "The People of our Country will not stand for it! These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process."
Meanwhile, GOP leaders are mulling actions against Facebook following the Oversight Board's decision to uphold the ban on former President Trump. According to WND, Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows disclosed how Republican members of Congress and those who support Trump are already planning on their actions against the tech giant.
These members of Congress are reportedly taking a look at their options, which include "[breaking] up Facebook" or "[making] sure they don't have a monopoly."
Meadows said that GOP leaders are concerned that Facebook has "two different standards," one for the former president and another set for "other people that are on their sites." Trump's adviser Corey Lewandowksi agrees that Facebook "clearly established two different sets of rules" for conservatives or Republicans or those who believe in different ideologies, and another set for liberals.
Among the other GOP leaders condemning Facebook's decision to uphold the ban on former President Trump, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy promised that when the GOP finds itself the majority in the House, they will "rein in big tech power over our speech."
