Facebook’s Oversight Board has confirmed that it received a statement from Donald Trump regarding the former president’s ban on the behemoth social site. Trump could tweet about it, but he’s banned on that social site, too. Social media means everything to the former president as it feeds his ego and helped to spread his fact-free Big Lie about widespread voter fraud that doesn’t exist. That lie, of course, led to the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, which the former president encouraged.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has left the decision to keep Trump’s ban permanent in the hands of the social site’s fairly new independent oversight body and the 20-member board, The Hill reported. Facebook requested the board’s “observations or recommendations on suspensions when the user is a political leader.” However, Trump is no longer in politics after getting his ass whooped by Joe Biden in both the popular and electoral vote — the election the former president tried to overturn before leaving the White House in disgrace.
Facebook confirmed that it received a message from the former president.
“We can confirm that a user statement has been received in the case before the Oversight Board concerning President Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts,” the spokesperson said in a statement. Still, that individual stopped short of sharing anything further about the former president’s message.
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced last month that Trump had been banned from Facebook and Instagram indefinitely following the violent Capitol insurrection. Trump’s account is still there, but it has remained inactive since Jan. 6.
“The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,” Zuckerberg wrote on Jan. 7. “His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world. We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect — and likely their intent — would be to provoke further violence.”
Trump, of course, lashed out over that decision, telling reporters it was a “catastrophic mistake for them (Facebook).”
Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
