Facebook Inc. is turning to its “Supreme Court” to consider a permanent ban on former President Donald Trump’s account.
The independent oversight board — a collection of 20 people that include a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Yemen, law professors, journalists, and free speech advocates that functions as the social-media giant’s FB, +1.83% high court on content — will review the decision to suspend Trump following the Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol, and decide on whether to ban him permanently.
Trump’s account will remain suspended until a decision is reached, Facebook said in a blog post. The board will begin accepting public comments on the case next week.
“Today the Oversight Board accepted a case referral from Facebook to examine their decision to indefinitely suspend former U.S. President Donald Trump’s access to post content on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook has also requested policy recommendations from the Board on suspensions when the user is a political leader,” the board said in a statement.
Trump, via his designated page administrators, will have the ability to address the board as to why he believes Facebook’s content moderation decisions should be overturned.
Trump, who has 35.5 million followers on Facebook, was ousted Jan. 7 following his incendiary comments that led to the insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., that resulted in five deaths. In what amounted to a social-media death blow, Trump was banned from Twitter Inc. TWTR for life on Jan. 8 also.
Read more: Twitter permanently suspends Trump’s account
The former president has subsequently been booted from Shopify Inc. SHOP, +0.05%, Snap Inc. SNAP, +3.76%, Facebook’s Instagram, and Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL, +1.00% GOOG, +1.03% YouTube, and Amazon.com Inc.’s AMZN, +1.80% Twitch.