Facebook to announce this week if it will permanently dump Trump
Facebook will shortly decide on whether to uphold Donald Trump’s indefinite suspension from Facebook and Instagram after he was banned from the platforms earlier this year.
Facebook’s independent oversight board will make a decision on May 5 whether to uphold the ban on the former US president on a permanent basis.
In the first move of its kind, Mark Zuckerberg’s company suspended the former president in early January in the hours after an insurrection at the US Capital in Washington DC.
Facebook expressed concerns that Trump’s presence on the social media sites could stoke further civil unrest among supporters.
Trump became the first US president in history to be impeached twice, after a majority at the US House of Representatives formally charged him with inciting an insurrection.
Inciting real-life violence is against Facebook’s policies and meets the requirements for a permanent ban.
Facebook initially said it would suspend Trump’s account until at least the end of his presidential term, though it underlined that the ban could last indefinitely.
Facebook’s independent oversight board was created in October last year in response to criticism over the company’s handling of problematic content.
Its 20 members include former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, former European Court of Human Rights judge Andras Sajo, and ex-Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
Twitter, meanwhile, suspended Trump permanently.