Facebook’s Oversight Board has delayed its decision regarding former US President Donald Trump’s possible return to Facebook and Instagram.
Trump was banned from Facebook in January after the Capitol Hill riots. The Board said the delay was due to the time it has taken to review over 9,000 public responses to cases.
A decision was originally due by April 21. In a statement on Twitter, the Board said it would make a decision “in the coming weeks”.
The ruling will be the biggest decision the Oversight Board has had to make since it started taking on cases last year.
The Board was set up to rule on difficult or controversial moderation decisions made by Facebook.
The 20-member committee, established by Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, is often referred to as “Facebook’s Supreme Court”. It operates as an independent entity, although its wages and others costs are covered by the tech company.
The committee is made up of journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and academics.
The group has already ruled on nine cases including:
• a comment that seemed derogatory to Muslims - in a post from a user in Myanmar, removed for breaking hate-speech rules - was found not to be Islamophobic, when taken in context
• an alleged quote from Joseph Goebbels - in an old post reshared by a US user, removed for violating polices on dangerous individuals and organisations - did not support Nazi ideology, again when taken in context
• a video about Covid-19 “cures” - referred to the board by Facebook - was a comment about French government health policy and would not lead people to self-medicate
• an Instagram post of eight photographs of breast-cancer symptoms should not have been removed - by Facebook’s automated moderation system, only to be restored before the board’s decision - for breaking adult-nudity rules