Facebook’s Oversight Board to announce ruling on Trump’s ban on May 5

Facebook’s Oversight Board will announce its decision on the ban on former US President Donald Trump on May 5.

The decision is said to be the final one on Trump’s fate on the social networking platform. According to Engadget, the board has received more than 9,000 public comments for the case. The board last month had said it would take longer than its initial 90-day deadline for its verdict on the case.

Facebook had briefly banned Trump from Facebook and Instagram in January after the attack on US Capitol. The company then later extended the ban on Trump indefinitely. After President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Facebook said it had referred the decision on the Trump ban to its Oversight Board.

It had then said that the decision would be binding on Facebook. It also revealed that Facebook had committed not to restore access to its platforms unless receiving a directive by a decision of the board.

“The Board aims to move as promptly as possible while ensuring that the review process is thorough and principled. The Board's Bylaws set an outer limit of 90 days as the time within which it must make a decision. As with all our cases, the Board is committed to being transparent about our work, and the case decision will be published on the Board's website. The decision will present the key information used by the panel to reach a decision, along with an explanation on how the panel reached its final conclusions,” it had said.

The Oversight Board, dubbed as Facebook’s Supreme Court, had come into existence in 2020. The board has the powers to overturn Facebook’s decisions on whether some individual pieces of content should exist on Facebook or Instagram. It can also give recommendations on Facebook's content policy, based on a case decision or at the company's request, but these are not binding.

So far, the Oversight Board has given its verdict on a total of eight cases. The board overturned Facebook’s decisions in six cases.