Sometime in the days immediately following May 7, Donald Trump calls Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and he isn’t happy.
Facebook has just announced the members of their new Oversight Board. This board will decide what content is acceptable for Facebook users and which content should not be allowed on the platform. None of the members are Trump loyalists.
Trump personally called Zuckerberg to say that he was unhappy with the makeup of the board. He was especially angry about the selection of Pamela Karlan, a Stanford Law professor who had testified against him during his first impeachment. “He used Pam as an example of how the board was this deeply offensive thing to him,” the person familiar with the process said. Zuckerberg listened, and then told Trump that the members had been chosen based on their qualifications. Despite the pressure from Trump, Facebook did not change the composition of the board.
The New Yorker
Conservative groups — possibly connected to the Council for National Policy — spent the past few months pressuring the company to appoint members they knew were sympathetic to Trump. Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric were on some of their lists.
The overall message from conservative groups was “fill this board with Trump-supporting conservatives or kill it.”
After the events of January 6, 2021, the Facebook Oversight Board suspends Donald Trump’s accounts. At the time of this writing, the board is reviewing whether or not to let him back on the platform.