Explained: Impact of Facebook’s Trump suspension on world leaders

Facebook’s new rules reduce the special treatment afforded to speech from politicians

Facebook’s move to freeze former US President Donald Trump’s account, on grounds that his posts on the social media site had encouraged an attack on Capitol Hill in January this year, could have ripple effects for the special treatment that the site usually affords to politicians’ speech world over.

Facebook made the decision on Friday to put an expiry date on Trump’s controversial suspension, with the ban to end in January 2023, in line with recommendations from the company’s Oversight Board for a “clear and proportionate” penalty.

While announcing the decision on Trump’s suspension, the Mark Zuckerberg-headed company also vowed to make changes to its “newsworthiness” policy, which allows certain posts that violate its community standards to remain on the site for their value as news or importance to public interest.

“…when we assess content for newsworthiness, we will not treat content posted by politicians any differently from content posted by anyone else,” the company said in a statement.

Warning bell for world leaders

When Facebook and other social media platforms had announced their decision to de-platform Trump, a number of world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, had voiced their opposition to the ban, arguing that only lawmakers should decide on the rules governing free speech.

Facebook’s new shift in policy could strip away some of the leeway political leaders are given to express their views on the platform. This raises the question of Facebook’s authority to limit speech and the manner in which it would go about doing it. Facebook has already been accused of political bias in the United States for how it handles hateful content.

Less elbow room for Indian leaders?

Several political leaders could now come under the radar for expressing opinions that some consider divisive, including leaders in India. There have been numerous instances of allegedly inflammatory speech being posted across social media in the country.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook ignored objectionable content and hate speech from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in what it termed a “broader pattern of favouritism towards the ruling party”, according to sources.

The article also said Facebook’s top public-policy executive in India had opposed applying the hate-speech rules to the BJP’s T Raja Singh after he allegedly communal and incendiary content on the platform for fear that any move against the post might hamper the company’s business prospects in the country.

The debate around free speech on social media has heated up since then, with social media companies being regularly asked to take down politically motivated posts and microblogging site Twitter having drawn the ire of the government after tagging a BJP spokesperson’s post as “manipulated media”.