Staunch Donald Trump ally and right-wing activist Charlie Kirk responded to the Facebook Oversight Board decision on Wednesday to uphold Trump’s ban from the social media platform by saying that the Supreme Court of the United States should intervene and get Trump back on Facebook.
In case you missed it, the Board upheld Facebook’s Jan. 7 suspension of Trump for glorifying violence in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 siege.
The Board found that the two posts by Mr. Trump on January 6 severely violated Facebook’s Community Standards and Instagram’s Community Guidelines. “We love you. You’re very special” in the first post and “great patriots” and “remember this day forever” in the second post violated Facebook’s rules prohibiting praise or support of people engaged in violence.
What the Board did not approve of was the open-ended and indefinite way in which the former president of the United States was banned.
“It is not permissible for Facebook to keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored,” the Board’s findings said.
As a result, the Board said Facebook must complete a review to “determine and justify a proportionate response that is consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform.” That review must occur “within six months of the date of this decision.”
For Charlie Kirk, this is a problem for the justices to solve.
“The US Supreme Court should overturn the Facebook’s ‘Oversight Board’s’ ‘ruling’ which upholds the outlawing of the 45th President of the United States from social media,” Kirk tweeted, urging the highest court in the land to force Facebook to host speech Kirk prefers. “This is a big tech, corporate oligarchy without standing and it’s gone too far. Enough is enough.”
The reaction to this tweet was what you would expect. Some legal observers branded the tweet as “the single dumbest ‘legal take’ of all time.” Others mocked it by sarcastically offering their own grievances for the Supreme Court to solve. Still others simply noted that this is not how any of this works.
https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/1389946416886337536?s=20
ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE FACEBOOK OVERSIGHT BOARD
JURISDICTION
The Board issued its judgment on May 5, 2021. Pet. App. 1a. The jurisdiction of this Court is invoked under 🤷♂️. https://t.co/XGBxVYz8LW
— Sean Marotta (@smmarotta) May 5, 2021
https://twitter.com/LevinsonJessica/status/1389943807764877314?s=20
https://twitter.com/dale_e_ho/status/1389939140129591300?s=20
[Image via NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images]
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