Facebook's "Supreme Court" will decide on Donald Trump's user accounts on Wednesday

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Ex-US President Donald Trump: There were more than 9,000 comments on his case

Photo: DOUG MILLS / imago images / UPI Photo

Next Wednesday, Facebook's Oversight Board wants to close its most prominent case to date: The question is whether former US President Donald Trump will continue to be banned from Facebook and Instagram.

The largely independent supervisory body, which is a kind of supreme court for Facebook, plans to announce its decision at 3 p.m. German time, as it announced on Monday.

The oversight board can overturn management decisions and has the final say.

Facebook banned Trump in January shortly before the end of his term in office.

The trigger was the storming of the US Capitol by his supporters - and that the President expressed sympathy for them and continued to claim without evidence that the victory in the presidential election had been stolen from him through massive fraud.

According to its own information, the committee received more than 9,000 comments in the course of the public submission process, more than in any other previous case. Normally, users should also call the committee. In this case, however, it was Facebook itself that wanted to have its decision reviewed - which is also covered by the committee's statutes. In addition, the company hopes for suggestions on how to deal with political leaders who violate Facebook's guidelines in the future. These proposals would be unlike the concrete stipulations on the Trump case, but not binding on Facebook.

In addition to Facebook, Donald Trump was banned from his platform on Twitter in January.

However, the company has already made it clear that there is no turning back for the ex-president.

His former Twitter account with more than 80 million subscribers was Trump's most important communication channel for years.

Unlike Twitter, Facebook has a supervisory body made up of legal experts, activists and former politicians that can review internal decisions about how to deal with individuals and content.

In the few previous decisions, the Oversight Board reversed several blocks of content by Facebook.

pbe / dpa