On Friday, Mark Zuckerberg’s and his organization announced they will be suspending President Donald Trump from Facebook for two years.
Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, said in a blog post, “We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7 this year.”
Last month, the not-so-independent “Oversight Board” (the equivalent of a Facebook Supreme Court…but not really) upheld the original decision to ban the former President. However, the board said, for the suspension to be acceptable, there would need to be a defined time in which the suspension would continue. In the final decision, the board said, “It is not permissible for Facebook to keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored.”
Clegg said, the decision to remove Trump from Facebook for two years, fulfills the Oversight Board’s requirements, “We are today announcing new enforcement protocols to be applied in exceptional cases such as this, and we are confirming the time-bound penalty consistent with those protocols which we are applying to Mr. Trump’s accounts. Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols.”
Facebook says it is concerned about “public safety” when Trump comes back to the aging platform. According to Clegg, Facebook’s position, at the end of two years, they will reevaluate if Trump will be let back on after a review determines the “risk to public safety has receded.”
