by Sharon Rondeau
(May 5, 2021) — In the wake of the decision announced by Facebook’s “oversight board” Wednesday to continue to ban 45th President of the United States Donald J. Trump from its platform, Trump issued the following statement on his new communications tool, “Desk“:
What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our 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. 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.
Facebook, Twitter, Google, Snapchat, Instagram and other sites shuttered Trump’s accounts shortly after the January 6 incursion of the U.S. Capitol which the companies’ management claimed Trump helped to incite when he addressed a crowd of a million or more supporters insisting that he, and not Democrat Joe Biden, won the November 3 election. During his address, Trump urged those who were able to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
In a statement on the blog earlier Wednesday morning, Trump said that “more corruption” has been discovered as to the “election fraud” which he claims occurred to deny him a second consecutive term in the White House.
On January 15, Facebook and its subsidiary, Instagram, temporarily reopened Trump’s accounts, noting him as a “political candidate,” but quickly suspended them again.
Facebook’s oversight board was to review its action toward Trump given that the “normal” steps taken against what the tech giant views as an offending account are “removing the violating content, imposing a time-bound period of suspension, or permanently disabling the page and account,” CBS News reported.
Facebook must review its decision in six months, the board opined.
Co-founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, who is the “face” of the organization, Facebook reportedly spent at least $350 million through a “left-leaning” organization to boost the 2020 Democrat vote in key areas, according to a report by The Amistad Project, a division of the Thomas More Society headed by former Kansas Atty. Gen. Phillip Klein.
The mainstream media has been largely silent as to whether or not Facebook and other “Big Tech” corporations are violating users’ right to free speech given that Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act provides social-media sites with liability protection over comments users make on their platforms.
Prior to leaving office, Trump encouraged Congress to revoke Section 230 as a result of Facebook and other outlets assuming the role of “publishers” and not simply “platforms.”
Since the election, Google-owned YouTube has increased its censorship of videos it considers controversial, particularly those claiming Trump won the election over Democrat Joe Biden.
Countless articles have been written about section 230 generally and how it applies to Facebook specifically. And several of the articles about the oversight board’s decision discussed possible section 230 reform.