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Much ado is being made about Facebook's self-appointed, unaccountable @OversightBoard. And I get it, because that self-regulatory body has a big decision before it: should Trump be allowed back on Facebook? We must not play into Facebook's frame on this. A thread ...
For years Facebook has habitually refused to stop the spread of racial and religious hatred on its platforms. In fact, it's amplified hateful activities and routinely driven people to them. It has shrugged off accountability at every stop with PR stunts. This is no different.
Facebook claims that it prohibits white supremacists and hate speech, but white supremacists are actively using Facebook to recruit new members, fundraise and plan hate and harassment campaigns, violent events and even insurrection.
Facebook has the technical capability to fix its promotions algorithms and root out white supremacists but simply refuses to do so.
Despite Trump’s flagrant and repeated violations of Facebook’s terms of service, including posts inspiring racial hatred & violence, & his spread of massive amounts of deadly disinformation about the pandemic & the election, he remained on Facebook until he incited insurrection.
Facebook issued a temporary suspension, left all of Trump’s past content up, and offloaded its responsibility to decide whether Trump should have the privilege of a Facebook presence to its fledgling, self-regulatory “Oversight Board.” This is cowardly.
The Oversight Board appears to be focused on whether Trump's posts at the time of Facebook's suspension were sufficiently problematic as to require suspension or banning. This focus only on online activity in a limited timeframe misses the point.
Trump has played a critical role in upholding white supremacy and normalizing racial and ethnic hate and violence. That didn't start on January 6th. When you look at the totality of the circumstances, there is no way he deserves a platform and amplification over social media.
I will never forget the day Trump launched his 2016 campaign on the backs of immigrants and Mexicans, calling my people rapists, criminals and drug dealers.
I will never forget how Facebook ran thousands of Trump campaign ads dehumanizing immigrants, referring to human beings as an invasion, & how those ads ran in heavy rotation in Texas, inspiring a mass murderer to shoot up a Walmart with the explicit purpose to kill brown people.
There are so many people who have lost their lives to white supremacist violence. Violence that Trump has inspired and legitimized. Violence that Facebook has facilitated. Those people aren't coming back. The blood is on Facebook's hands.
So you'll have to forgive my lack of patience with the phony premise that the Facebook Oversight Board is some sort of quasi-legal body that's going to fix Facebook. It's not.
The bottom line is that Trump should not be on Facebook. To reinstate him is dangerous. It opens the door to more violence, more deadly disinformation. To reinstate Trump would be a racist act.
So yes, by all means, #BanTrumpOnFacebook. That's just the tip of the iceberg. And then let's get on with the business of regulating social media and building broader corporate accountability campaigns to stop the hate-and-lie-for-profit business model once and for all.
I'll be working with @changeterms @FBoversight @freepressaction and other allies to make sure Facebook is met with real accountability.
