Nick Clegg, the social media giant’s vice president of global affairs, defended the move to suspend Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the wake of the Capitol riot on January 6, which the now-former president has been accused of inciting.
The ban will now go before the company’s Oversight Board for review. Facebook says the board, established last May, is independent and its decisions cannot be overturned by anyone within the company, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“Given its significance, we think it is important for the board to review it and reach an independent judgment on whether it should be upheld,” Clegg said in a statement released on Thursday. “While we await the board’s decision, Mr. Trump’s access will remain suspended indefinitely. We look forward to receiving the board’s decision — and we hope, given the clear justification for our actions on January 7, that it will uphold the choices we made.”
Other social media companies, including Twitter and Snapchat, clamped down on Trump’s major social media presence following the disorder, which led to the deaths of five people and to Trump being impeached a second time.
That violence came after the then-president and his close circle called for voters to march on the Capitol on the day congress confirmed the Electoral College votes that gave Joe Biden the presidency.
Social bans raised significant questions over big tech’s role in the democratic process, as world leaders such as Germany’s Angela Merkle have pointed out, and critics accusing Facebook of double-standards for blocking Trump and not others.
Clegg, who was U.K. deputy prime minister at the same time Biden was U.S. vice president, acknowledged those concerns after releasing his statement.
Speaking on NPR’s All Things Considered this week, Clegg said private companies should not “vet everything that politicians say,” but that Facebook would act when it felt its policies on hate speech and incitement to violence were broken.
Trump’s actions on social were “jeopardizing the peaceful transition of power,” Clegg said. “The touchstone principle for us — and people can agree or disagree with it — is this — is where we feel there is speech on our platform where there is a link to an impending risk of real-world violence, then we act — then we act.”
It is unclear when the Oversight Board will reach a conclusion over Trump’s ban, but Facebook has previously said it expects cases to be resolved within 90 days.
Its decision will be published on its website; if the board overrules Facebook’s decision the company has committed to complying and issuing a response.
The board includes one-time Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and the former editor of the Guardian newspaper, Alan Rusbridger.
