A cochair of Facebook's Oversight Board said Facebook 'exercises too much power' in applying its rules as it decides whether to permanently ban Trump's account

• A cochair of Facebook's Oversight Board said Facebook wielded "too much power."
• Michael McConnell called Facebook's rules "a shambles," "unclear," and "inconsistent."
• The board last week ruled that an indefinite ban of Donald Trump's account wasn't appropriate.

Michael McConnell, a cochair of Facebook's Oversight Board, said on Sunday that the social-media site "exercises too much power" as it decides whether to permanently ban former President Donald Trump's account.

The company's independent review board on Wednesday agreed with the decision to suspend Trump's account but said the indefinite nature of the ban was "indeterminate and standardless." Facebook must review its decision within six months, the Oversight Board said.

Trump was suspended from the platform over the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

McConnell said in a Fox News interview on Sunday that Trump's social-media posts in the run-up to the Capitol riot were a "plain violation of Facebook's rules against praising dangerous individuals and organizations at a time of violence."

During the insurrection, a mob of Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden's victory over Trump in the 2020 election. Trump had spent months baselessly challenging the integrity of the election, and he was initially silent on social media as the attack unfolded.

Eventually he told the rioters to "go home," but he added "we love you, you are very special."

His social-media posts on that day and the day after quickly got him permanently barred from Twitter and indefinitely suspended from Facebook.

McConnell said the former president was "subject to the same rules on Facebook as everyone else and the Oversight Board held that this was in fact a violation, and thus Facebook was justified in taking them down."

He said the board was trying to bring principles of the First Amendment into the decision of banning Trump's Facebook account.

Read more: Facebook delays meeting with advertisers after Oversight Board kicks Trump ban back to the platform

But the board said on Wednesday that it was "not appropriate" to indefinitely suspend the former president's account. McConnell echoed that assertion Sunday.

"They did not provide any reasons for that," he said. "That is not a provision in their rules. That was wrong."

McConnell said Facebook needed time to make a final decision because, in his view, "their rules are a shambles."

Facebook didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

He went on to say Facebook's content-moderation rules were "not transparent, they are unclear, they are internally inconsistent." He said the board had made recommendations to Facebook about how to improve those rules.

"Facebook exercises too much power," he said. "They are arbitrary. They are inconsistent. And it is the job of the Oversight Board to try to bring some discipline to that process."

Facebook launched the Oversight Board late last year in an effort to give more attention and resources to its content-moderation decisions. Though Facebook said the board - dubbed Facebook's "Supreme Court" - is independent, the company has final discretion in deciding whether each ruling will apply only to the particular post in question or whether it will serve as precedent for similar content.

Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president of global affairs and communications, said last week in a statement that the company was considering the board's decision and reviewing its recommendations before it takes "clear and proportionate" action on Trump's account.