FB Oversight Board says other platforms 'welcome to join'

The board is now poised to consider a very significant decision: should former US President Donald Trump's Facebook account remain suspended or should he be allowed back on the platform to reconnect with his millions of followers? 

Trump's Facebook account was suspended due to "incitements" leading to the January 6 storming of the US Capitol. 

In a conversation hosted by the Carnegie Endowment on Thursday, Oversight Board co-chair and former Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt said that if the project proves to be a success, "other platforms and other tech companies are more than welcome to join and be part of the oversight that we will be able to provide," TechCrunch reported. 

Thorning-Schmidt, however, said that such a vision could see the light of the day well in the future. 

"Until now, content moderation was basically done by the last person at Facebook or Twitter as we have seen -- either Mark Zuckerberg or the other platform directors," Thorning-Schmidt said. 

"For the first time in history, we actually have content moderation being done outside one of the big social media platforms. That in itself...I don't hesitate to call it historic." 

Those involved with the board defended the project during the conversation. 

However, sceptics of the group earlier raised concerns that real autonomy of the board was questionable given its origins with Facebook.