By Jeff Horwitz

Facebook Inc. was justified in banning then-President Donald Trump, the company's independent oversight board ruled Wednesday, but in coming months must decide whether the former president is permanently locked out of the platform.

The decision, which is binding, largely ratifies a choice personally approved by Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg in the wake of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot and could have far-reaching implications for how technology companies police political speech.

It prevents Mr. Trump from regaining the social-media megaphone that he wielded for years and that he has lacked since the industry's major players banned him from posting on their platforms earlier this year, alleging he helped incite the violence at the Capitol. The move also hampers one of his most effective fundraising tools.

While Mr. Trump isn't known to be an avid Facebook user personally, as he was with Twitter, his staff regularly cross-posted his tweets there and used it to reach his more than 35 million followers on the platform.

The Facebook decision was made by five members of the current 20-person Oversight Board, then ratified by a majority of the full board. The identities of the five individuals involved in the decision won't be revealed.

Funded by Facebook through an endowment established in 2019, the Oversight Board is designed to help the company tackle its most contentious content-moderation issues and make policy recommendations. The board operates like a Supreme Court for content; the company can refer cases or individual users can ask the board to review Facebook enforcement decisions.

Facebook joined Alphabet Inc.'s YouTube, Twitter Inc. and other social-media platforms in removing then-president Trump after accusing him of inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The riot, which left five people dead, followed a speech by Mr. Trump alleging that November's election had been stolen from him and calling on his supporters to take their grievances to Congress.

Mr. Trump has denied wrongdoing, and his lawyers in the unsuccessful impeachment hearing against him called it "patently absurd" to suggest that he incited violence. Mr. Trump was impeached by the House and was acquitted in the Senate.

The former president has said repeatedly that he believes Silicon Valley's biggest tech firms are biased against him and conservatives generally.

Facebook took down the president's account after determining that two of his posts from that day violated its prohibition of praise for dangerous individuals and organizations. In those posts, Mr. Trump called for peace but said the rioters' rage was justified.

The major social-media platforms all took action against the president's posts that afternoon, then formalized more lasting suspensions in the following days. Facebook announced its ban in a post by Mr. Zuckerberg.

"We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great," Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in a January 7 post, arguing that Mr. Trump was seeking to use the platform to disrupt the peaceful transition of power.

Twitter has since declared its ban of Mr. Trump to be permanent, while YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has said the platform will allow his return when it is "safe" to do so.

These decisions have drawn criticism from many Republican lawmakers, who say technology companies are censoring right-leaning viewpoints, and some civil-liberties groups have likewise expressed concern about the industry's control over political speech. Some world leaders unaligned with Mr. Trump also questioned his removal, with Germany's Angela Merkel calling the silencing of a head of state problematic.

Many Democratic lawmakers and civil-rights groups have said the companies were too slow to act against Mr. Trump's provocative social-media activity, which they say set the stage for the violence in the wake of the election.

Without a major social-media platform since the takedowns, Mr. Trump has been communicating with his followers via written press statements. He also maintains a direct line to supporters through his campaign's email database, through which he is fundraising for his political-action committee.

The decision could have major business implications for Facebook. A number of major advertisers temporarily boycotted Facebook last year in protest over what they said was the company's ineffective policing of hate speech. Facebook in recent weeks has reached out to advertising agencies in calls and emails to describe the board's process and emphasize that its corporate management has no sway over the decision, advertising executives said.

Facebook is the only company to have submitted its decision to outside review and comment. Three weeks after suspending Mr. Trump from the platform, Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president of global affairs, called the ban "necessary and right" but said it was important for the board to consider the case and offer guidance on how to handle alleged misbehavior by heads of state.

The board received voluminous feedback in advance of the decision, getting more than 9,000 public comments, as well as a brief from Mr. Trump.

Partly in response to Mr. Trump's controversial rhetoric about immigrants and Muslims during the 2016 presidential campaign, Facebook carved out a "newsworthiness exemption" from its policies against hate speech. In 2019, the company formalized protections for political figures with rules exempting them from fact-checking, saying it was inappropriate for the company to referee political debates.

Facebook always maintained that speech that it deems to be incitement to violence wouldn't be tolerated from any user.

Formed last year, the Oversight Board includes lawyers, human-rights advocates and former politicians drawn from around the world.

The board's first round of decisions struck a free-speech-friendly tone, with members rebuking Facebook for taking down posts questioning the sanity of Muslim men and supporting the availability of Covid-19 treatments generally rejected by public health authorities.

Although the board initially promised to weigh in on Mr. Trump's ban within 90 days, it postponed the decision in order to consider public comments.

--Alexandra Bruell and Suzanne Vranica contributed to this article.

Write to Jeff Horwitz at Jeff.Horwitz@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-05-21 0925ET