Up until this week, Facebook had a few things going for it in the tech wars, as far as conservatives are concerned: for one thing, it’s where the Boomers are. For another, between it, Google and Twitter, Facebook has pushed back more than the others on calls to censor it, and Mark Zuckerberg himself is one of the few tech execs who talks about the value of free speech when he testifies before Congress. Third, Facebook was under the gun of an immense liberal pressure campaign. It may not be saying much, but Facebook was the best of the three big platforms.

But any goodwill that might have built up on the conservative side because of those factors is gone now, after the Oversight Board maintained President Trump’s ban from the platform this week.

The Oversight Board itself embodies a kind of managerial liberalism perfectly: By outsourcing the toughest content-moderation decisions to a panel of lawyers and NGO apparatchiks, they give themselves cover. It began issuing rulings this January, and the Trump ban is by far the most significant.

The OB’s ruling doesn’t even end the controversy, because they essentially kicked the decision back to the company:

In applying a vague, standardless penalty and then referring this case to the Board to resolve, Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities. The Board declines Facebook’s request and insists that Facebook apply and justify a defined penalty.

To which one might say, of course Facebook seeks to avoid their responsibilities, that’s why the Oversight Board exists.

The Board also asked 46 questions related to the ban, of which Facebook declined to answer seven, including a question about how Facebook’s algorithms might have boosted users’ ability to see Trump’s posts. When your Oversight Board staffed by human rights attorneys start asking questions about how your proprietary algorithms are encouraging extremism, you have a real problem; it’s the same criticism increasingly leveled by the Democratic Party and activist class. One wonders if the board is going to transform into another stick for them to hit the company with. It should be said that none of the pressure groups currently working on Facebook actually have any problem with spreading extremism, because none of them had a problem with the platform being used to coordinate riots last summer. What they don’t like is when the Boomers get uppity.

But if there was any chance of a truce with conservatives that might make conservatives willing to defend the company, it’s gone now. If there’s one thing Facebook is great at, it’s alienating people. The vitriol turned their way by the mainstream media recently probably has a lot to do with how their algorithm changes almost singlehandedly killed the vaunted “pivot to video” in journalism a few years ago, playing a role in the downsizing or collapse of Mic, IJR, Vox and other media companies. They’re now trying to play hardball with a sovereign government in Australia to avoid paying news companies. In their quest to be seen as an olympian, neutral global communications platform, Facebook is finding itself increasingly without anyone to friend.