Facebook’s Oversight Board is expected to make a decision soon regarding whether or not Donald Trump’s ban from the platform will be made permanent.

Ahead of the decision, American Principles Project (APP) released the following statement questioning the board’s legitimacy and calling for greater protections for free speech:

“We do not recognize the Facebook Oversight Board as having any sort of authority over what speech should or should not be allowed in the public square. Our position is that market-dominant digital platforms based in the US should generally commit to upholding First Amendment principles with regard to content moderation, as affirmed by Supreme Court jurisprudence, while providing users with as many personalized content moderation options as possible.

“We therefore refrained from submitting comments to the Oversight Board regarding President Trump’s recent suspension from the Facebook platform. Additionally, we believe that the outcome to this ‘case’ has already been determined, and we have no interest in lending credibility to a show trial. It’s bad enough one is already taking place in the halls of Congress.”

Last year, APP released a proposal to reform Section 230 which would require market-dominant Big Tech platforms to follow First Amendment principles or else lose their liability protections.

APP also filed a complaint with the FEC after the election, alleging that Facebook’s removal of its ads represented an illegal in-kind contribution to Democrats. You can read that complaint here.

To schedule an interview with an APP policy expert, contact Paul Dupont at (o) 202-503-2010 or pdupont@americanprinciplesproject.org.