Oversight Board Comment on Facebook ’s Suspension of Donald Trump

Will DuffieldI submitted the following public comment to the Oversight Board regarding their review of Facebook ’s decision to indefinitely suspend President Donald Trump.2021-001-FB-FBR Public CommentWill Duffield, Policy Analyst, Cato InstituteThis public comment addresses deficiencies in Facebook ’s initial justification for its suspension of President Trump and examines how the current broad application of the newsworthiness principle to politicians undermines the legitimacy of Facebook’s Community Standards.Facebook had ample justification to suspend President Trump after the Capitol riot under its prohibition on the incitement of violence. Rioters said their actions were justified by claims that the election results were illegitimate, the product of an elite conspiracy to deny President Trump a second term. President Trump continued to endorse claims of a stolen election even while condemning the day ’s violence. Given the demonstrated capacity of these claims to inspire violence (indeed, how else should one respond to the usurpation of democracy), Trump’s persistence in echoing them in his capacity as president would have justified suspending him under policies against speech that incites v iolence.While Facebook ’s incitement policy is narrowly tailored to calls for violence, when Facebookexpanded its election integrity measures in the weeks after the riot, it did so to “stop misinformation and content that could incite further violence.” While new pro...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs