It’s no secret that the Big Tech has banned former President Donald Trump from their respective platforms in an effort to silence the 45th president.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat have all censored Trump’s accounts.
But there’s a ray of hope.
According to Western Journal Trump could be making a triumphant return to Facebook soon.
The platform’s oversight board — an independent committee — has accepted an official appeal by the Trump team. The board’s co-chair, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, says that the board will take into consideration both the appeal and the opinions of public Facebook users as part of its decision.
“We’ve already received public comment in the thousands and thousands on this case,” Thorning-Schmidt said in an interview with British television, “Of course we will look through those public comments and make them part of our decision-making.”
By her word, the board has 90 days to review the case, making it likely that if Trump is indeed reinstated, it would be around May.
Western Journal reported that in the past, Facebook users hadn’t had the opportunity to make their pleas to an independent board. But things have changed, and they now favor Trump’s return.
“What’s important about having an oversight board is for the first time, we get an opportunity to be on the users’ side. And we have a process of dealing with issues which is much deeper, much more thorough, much more transparent than we’ve ever seen before.”
Critics familiar with this fight between Trump and the social media giants are calling this one of the strongest tests of the 1st amendment the country has ever seen.
“Obviously, it’s a very high-profile case, but that’s exactly why the oversight board was created in the first place: to take the cases that are of interest to a lot of people and also are very principled cases,” Thorning-Schmidt added.
While it’s not Twitter (Trump’s preferred social media platform), it’s certainly a start.
The Horn editorial team