Will former U.S. President Donald Trump return to Facebook or Instagram? Facebook’s public comment period, which expires on Friday, is due to expire. Facebook’s oversight committee, will make a decision soon.
The co-chair of Facebook’s Facebook oversight committee said the committee’s decision was based on international human rights standards, not on the laws of the country where the case was filed.
Herle Thorning-Schmidt, co-chair of Facebook’s oversight committee: “Human rights standards, international human rights standards, apply to everyone. Do they apply to everyone? They apply to everybody. It’s not just one country that needs to follow them. The company and Facebook actually have to comply with international human rights law, so for us there’s no contradiction. We don’t actually consider national laws when we’re dealing with cases.”
Last year, Facebook created an independent oversight committee to review its decisions on content review. The committee began reviewing Facebook’s ban on former President Trump.
Herle Thorning-Schmidt, co-chair of Facebook’s oversight committee: “This is the beginning of this case, and we will look at this case as we hear any other cases. Using a principled, transparent way of working, we try to strike a balance between freedom of expression and other human rights. In particular, when dealing with a very prominent public figure, does that person, or user, have rights that are different from other users?”
It is unclear what international law the commission is referring to and whether the commission’s decision will lead to an erosion of U.S. sovereignty. But the co-chair said she thinks it’s better than the government being on social media and doing content review.
Co-chair Schmidt is a former Danish prime minister and former leader of the Danish Social Democratic Party. She stressed that the oversight committee is independent of Facebook and said that four of the five decisions they have made so far are different from Facebook’s original decision.
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