Microblogging site Twitter suspended Donald Trump’s account. Twitter and Facebook are both American companies.
Washington. Social media company Facebook has suspended the account of former US President Donald Trump for two years. This decision of Facebook will be considered effective from 7 January 2021. Earlier, microblogging site Twitter suspended Donald Trump’s account. Twitter and Facebook are both American companies. Facebook suspended Trump’s account four months ago for inciting violence on the Parliament complex in Washington on January 6. Trump has also been permanently banned from micro-blogging site Twitter.
Earlier there was news that former US President Donald Trump would not be returning to Facebook for the time being. The social media network’s semi-independent board of supervision expressed its opinion in favor of upholding the suspension of his account on Facebook. His account was suspended four months ago for inciting violence on the Parliament complex in Washington on January 6.
While upholding the suspension, the board, however, found it lacking in the manner in which Facebook had taken the decision. “It was not appropriate for Facebook to impose an indefinite and standardless fine of suspension indefinitely,” the board said. The board said Facebook has six months to re-investigate the “arbitrary fines” imposed on January 7 to determine any further fines, reflecting “the seriousness of the breach and the potential for future damage”.
The board said the new fines must be “clear, mandatory and proportionate” and in accordance with Facebook’s rules for serious violations. The board said that if Facebook decides to reinstate Trump’s account, the company should be able to quickly detect further breaches.
Debate in the US Parliament on Facebook’s decision
In early May, the debate on Facebook’s decision to amend the 1996 Communications Decency Act in the US Parliament intensified. Under this law, digital platform companies have legal protection to keep material available with them and remove them as objectionable. Article 230 of this law has given a lot of powers to companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google. This law came into force when these powerful social media companies were not even formed.
Roger Wicker, senior Republican lawmaker on the Senate Commerce Committee, said, “For a long time social media platforms have been using Article 230 to remove content that they believe to be offensive.” To this, Trump and President Joe Biden. had agreed. Trump called for the repeal of Article 230 during his presidency, calling it a “serious threat to national security and electoral integrity”. Biden said during the campaigning that it should be “immediately cancelled”. However, after becoming the President, he did not say anything on this issue.
A Twitter and Google spokesperson declined to comment on the magnitude of the legislative action on Article 230. Facebook hasn’t commented on this yet.
