TOM SLATER: Why Trump’s Facebook ban still matters.

When Facebook punted Trump’s case over to this new ‘independent’ board – set up in 2018 as a kind of Supreme Court for the social network – it was trying to outsource to the ‘experts’ the question of what to do about his ban in the long-term. That the board has refused to do so will at least force Zuckerberg et al to take some responsibility. But the ruling, from this group of human-rights types, journalists and former politicians, has nevertheless lent legitimacy to the decision to ban Trump in the first place.

That’s a problem, because that decision represented one of the most terrifying corporate interventions into democratic politics in recent memory. In removing Trump from its platform, used by around 70 per cent of adult Americans, Facebook was effectively standing between a president and his people, depriving him of access to what now constitutes the public square. This is an assault on democracy that makes the surreal storming of the Capitol pale into insignificance.

The Left has to keep calling the January 6 riot an “insurrection” in order to keep Trump quiet and the Right down.