Facebook to review Donald Trump’s social media ban
After banning Donald Trump, Facebook is asking its independent experts to rule on whether the former president’s suspension should stand.
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Facebook is asking independent experts to rule on whether former president Donald Trump’s suspension for “fomenting insurrection” should stand.
The social network, along with Instagram, suspended Trump after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, an attack on the seat of democracy that led to Trump’s second impeachment.
Facebook is referring the decision to its independent oversight board – known informally as the Facebook “supreme court” – with the authority to make binding rulings even chief executive Mark Zuckerberg must abide by.
“We believe our decision was necessary and right,” Facebook vice president of global affairs Nick Clegg said in a blog post.
“Our decision to suspend then-president Trump’s access was taken in extraordinary circumstances: a US president actively fomenting a violent insurrection designed to thwart the peaceful transition of power; five people killed; legislators fleeing the seat of democracy.” Unprecedented circumstances called for unprecedented action against Trump, reasoned Clegg, a former deputy British prime minister.
Facebook’s oversight board is tasked with making final decisions on appeals regarding what is removed or allowed to remain on the world’s biggest social network.
Launch of the panel came late last year amid rising concerns about misinformation and manipulation around the US election.
Trump’s access to Facebook will remain suspended while it awaits an oversight board decision, according to Clegg.
“We hope, given the clear justification for our actions on January 7, that it will uphold the choices we made,” Clegg said.
Along with the ruling, Facebook will welcome “recommendations from the board around suspensions when the user is a political leader,” he added.
Reaction to the Trump ban has ranged from criticism that Facebook should have booted him long ago to outrage over his online voice being muted.
“We have taken the view that in open democracies people have a right to hear what their politicians are saying – the good, the bad and the ugly – so that they can be held to account,” Clegg said.
“But it has never meant that politicians can say whatever they like.” Members of the oversight board come from various countries and include jurists, human rights activists, journalists, a Nobel Peace laureate and a former Danish prime minister.
‘HE’S TRYING TO PUT TOGETHER A TEAM’
Ousted president Donald Trump has spent his first hours out of office in a fruitless search for lawyers to represent him at his looming impeachment trial, according to leading Republican Lindsay Graham.
With his social media accounts suspended and the spotlight firmly on his replacement, Mr Trump found himself in unfamiliar territory after he presented a despondent figure retreating to Florida on Wednesday (local time).
Mr Graham said the former president told him: “I really don’t know the lay of the land here’, and he’s looking for some lawyers.
“I’m trying to help him there and he’s just trying to put together a team,” he told reporters in the Senate on Thursday (local time).
With his personal brand increasingly toxic, Mr Trump was reportedly struggling to find good representation after his former high profile legal team turned down the opportunity to defend him at his impeachment trial for inciting the deadly Capitol incursion.
As he worked the phones on Wednesday, Mr Trump also pressed his dwindling allies on whether or not they would vote to ban him from running again for president if he is found guilty at his senate trial, according to the Daily Beast.
House Democrats are said to be in discussions to send over the article of impeachment to the Senate as early as Friday (local time), but complicating the situation is the fact Mr Trump does not have legal representation.
WHITE HOUSE PUSHED ON ‘UNITY’ MESSAGE
Indeed, new US President Joe Biden began his term in office with a message of unity, expressing a desire to move past the rancorous division in the United States and bring people together, as Congress remains set to carry out an impeachment trial for Mr Trump.
During her first press briefing after Mr Biden’s inauguration, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked by Fox News if the new president thinks the impeachment process should be dropped. Ms Psaki said the administration believes that the Senate can hold the trial while also moving the country forward.
“Well, he spoke today, as you all saw, about unity in his inaugural address and the importance of unity and bringing the country together and the resolve of the American people in helping to get through this moment,” Ms Psaki said.
“You know, we are confident, though, that just like the American people can, the Senate can also multitask and they can do their constitutional duty while continuing to conduct the business of the American people.”
In the final days of Mr Trump’s presidency, Republicans argued that impeaching a president who has already left office would not only be constitutionally questionable but would only serve to further divide a country following a bitter election and transition period.
Ms Psaki said that for Mr Biden, uniting the people will come from dealing with the problems the country is facing.
“And so that means getting this COVID relief package through, having Democrats and Republicans take a serious look at that and have conversations with each other about how to move it forward,” she said.
As for impeachment, Ms Psaki said Mr Biden will “leave the mechanics, the timing and the specifics” to Congress.
BIDEN’S SWEEPING COVID BATTLE PLAN
Meanwhile, Mr Biden’s administration unveiled its plan to turn the tide on COVID-19 in America, where 400,000 people have died, as the US leader tackled his first full day in the White House.
Officials said Mr Biden would immediately sign 10 executive orders and other directives to jump-start the national strategy.
Experts have said that was sorely missing under his predecessor Donald Trump — and on Thursday (local time) Mr Biden’s communications director Kate Bedingfield said the outgoing administration had left little in the way of a vaccination distribution program.
There was “not a lot of detail,” she told US media — but she added that Mr Biden would sign executive orders that same day to invoke emergency legislation to increase industrial production and “just to make sure that we have the material that we need to get these vaccinations into arms around the country.” The Biden administration would be “laser-focused” on that going forward, she added, saying it seeks to increase supply, boost distribution and secure the funding to make it all happen.
The US is the world’s hardest-hit country with more than 405,000 deaths, and government models suggest the B.1.1.7 variant imported from Britain could supercharge the outbreak’s trajectory in the coming months.
BIDEN GETS STRAIGHT TO WORK
And just hours after he was inaugurated on Wednesday (local time), Mr Biden spent his first day in office signing 17 executive orders to reverse what advisers say caused the “greatest damage” to the United States.
Among the orders, Mr Biden focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, re-entering climate change commitments, and putting an end to Donald Trump’s infamous border wall.
Here are the major takeaways:
COVID-19
Mr Biden campaigned on tackling the pandemic. His executive order on the issue included appointing Jeffrey Zients as the official COVID-19 response co-ordinator to the President; reinstating ties with the World Health Organisation, which Donald Trump previously severed, and appointing Dr Anthony Fauci to lead the US’s delegation to the organisation’s executive board; introducing mask-wearing and social distancing policies for all federal properties and for all federal employees.
ECONOMY
The president announced an extension to moratoriums on housing evictions that will last until March, and extend a pause on student loan debt that will last until September.
CLIMATE
Mr Biden re-entered the Paris climate accords, after Mr Trump announced the US’s withdrawal in 2019. The president also reversed a number of key environmental policies introduced over the last four years, including revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit and reversing rollbacks to car emission standards.
IMMIGRATION
In another executive order, Mr Biden ended the Muslim travel ban; issued an “immediate termination” of construction to Mr Trump’s border wall with Mexico and announced a review into the legality of the Trump administration’s diversion of federal funds; and moved to provide greater protections for children known as Dreamers through strengthening the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (commonly known as DACA) program. The order also reccomends congress introduces legislation to allow Dreamers permanent residency and citizenship.
BIDEN’S FIRST DAY IN OFFICE
Mr Biden stormed through a marathon first day capped by the signing of a flurry of new executive orders to reverse some of Mr Trump’s key policies.
On Wednesday, Mr Biden delivered a rousing call for unity in a speech that contrasted sharply with the dark Inauguration Day address that began Mr Trump’s tumultuous four years in office in 2017.
The 46th President was cheered by a sparse and socially-distanced crowd at the US Capitol when he said the American spirit could “rise to the occasion … and master this rare and difficult hour”.
“We face a time of testing. We face an attack on our democracy and on truth. A raging virus, growing inequity. The sting of systemic racism. A climate in crisis. America’s role in the world,” Mr Biden said.
“Any one of these will be up to challenge us in profound ways. But the fact is, we face them all at once. Presenting this nation with one of the gravest responsibilities we’ve ever had.”
Declaring an end to the “uncivil” war that “pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal”, Mr Biden called for unity as the “path forward”.
“Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we’re all created equal and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonisation, have long torn us apart,” Mr Biden said.
But while it was Mr Biden’s day, Mr Trump was not far from the public’s consciousness.
Having begun his morning with a historic snub by neither attending his successor’s swearing-in nor personally greeting him at the White House, a despondent-looking Mr Trump retreated to his new base in Florida.
With a brief speech to supporters and members of his family before boarding Air Force One, Mr Trump hinted at a political return.
“We will be back in some form,” he said, adding that his administration left behind a “foundation to do something really spectacular”.
Despite his unconventional exit from the Oval Office, Mr Trump did follow one transition convention: leaving behind a letter for Mr Biden on the Resolute Desk.
Its contents would remain private, Mr Biden said, until Mr Trump agreed that they could be revealed.
“The president wrote a very generous letter,” Mr Biden said. “Because it was private, I won’t talk about it until I talk to him. But it was generous.”
In his inaugural address, Mr Biden described it as “a day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve” and pledged his “whole soul” was ready to fight for America’s future.
Reflecting on the Capitol incursion where “just a few days ago, violence sought to shake the very Capitol’s foundation, we come together as one nation, under God, indivisible, to carry out the peaceful transfer of power, as we have for more than two centuries”.
“Today, we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate, but of a cause, a cause of democracy,” he said.
Mr Biden thanked his “predecessors of both parties, for their presence here today”, including Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton, who attended the address and a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington military cemetery.
This was followed by a “virtual” parade in which Mr Biden and his extended family, including wife Jill, his two children and some of their five grandchildren walked into the White House.
They were followed by Kamala Harris, the first female vice president, and her husband and stepchildren.
Later, during his first Oval Office appearance and welcoming of the new executive staff, he emphasised his plan to govern with decency.
“I’m not joking when I say this: If you’re ever working with me and I hear you treat another with disrespect … I promise you I will fire you on the spot,” he said to his staff.
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Originally published as Facebook to review Donald Trump’s social media ban
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