We do know that the Oversight Board thinks that Facebook ought to follow human rights norms, including the Rabat Plan of Action, in making these decisions, consistent with the board’s prior decisions in which it has referenced the Rabat document and international human rights law. Finally, I highlight the board’s recommendations about political leaders’ speech, and the alternative point of view put forward by a minority of the board’s members.Ĭrucially, we have no answer yet to the question of how Facebook will treat political leaders who incite violence in future, or how far the controversy surrounding its opaque and seemingly-arbitrary and potentially self-interested decisions about such choices are justified. Next, I discuss the Oversight Board’s decision, the questions it answers, and the ones it leaves open. This approach follows my analysis in a law review article, in which I argue that choices made when framing the problem will be critical to how the Oversight Board is perceived. I first offer background on the Trump Ban decision and its global significance, and then discuss how broadly or narrowly the Oversight Board might have read the questions before it. In this essay, I examine the Oversight Board’s decision in the context of the options before it. The other notable feature is the dissenting voice of a minority of the board members threaded through the decision. It also declined to share information about suspension of accounts of other political figures and removal of other content, which some may argue is necessary if the Oversight Board is to offer useful and granular policy guidance about Facebook’s treatment of political leaders’ accounts, or to examine whether Trump was treated differently from other political leaders. This included questions about the visibility of Trump’s content as a result of Facebook’s newsfeed and other features, and whether political officeholders had contacted the company about the former president’s accounts. The Oversight Board also offered policy recommendations (which are not binding) on the suspension of political leaders’ accounts more broadly, suggesting that if a head of state or high government official repeatedly posts messages that pose a risk of harm under international human rights norms, Facebook should suspend the account.Īmong the most remarkable features of this decision is that Facebook declined to answer several questions put to it by the Oversight Board. Facebook now has six months to reexamine the arbitrary penalty of an indefinite suspension, and return with an “appropriate” penalty corresponding to clear rules for severe violations that apply to all users. It raised questions about the procedure Facebook followed in reaching its decision about the penalty. Trump’s account, the board found that the suspension was justified, but declared the indefinite suspension indeterminate, standardless, and generally inappropriate. In the Facebook Oversight Board’s decision about the indefinite suspension of former President Donald J.
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