Get ready to see Trump posts being shared on your Facebook feed again.
Trim he announced(Opens in a new window) Wednesday that it will be restoring Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. The move ends Trump’s two-year suspension of the company.
“Two years ago, we took action on a difficult and unusual situation,” Meta’s President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg said in a statement posted on the company’s website, referring to Jan. 6, 2021. According to Clegg, the company’s decision. it comes after assessing whether there was a “significant threat to public safety.”
Donald Trump has an assistant who follows him around on the golf course to show him good notes
“We have assessed the current situation in accordance with our Crisis Policy Protocol, which includes looking at the US 2022 mid-term elections, as well as an expert assessment of the current security situation,” he said. “Our determination is that the risk has decreased sufficiently, and that we must comply with the two-year period that we have set.”
Therefore, we will be restoring the accounts of Mr. Trump on Facebook and Instagram in the coming weeks,” he said.
The former president was to be suspended from the Meta platform after the events of January 6, which saw a pro-Trump group violently bombard the Capitol building in an attempt to block the certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election and overturn the results in his favor. Trumpet. Before that, and at the same time, the riots that Trump was sending dangerous messages(Opens in a new window) to his followers, which led to him being banned from many social media platforms.
“We believe the risk of allowing the president to continue using our service at this time is too great,” Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a statement on his Facebook page at the time.
Following the suspension, Meta referred the matter to the Labor Control Board, which recommended the suspension but he criticized the company for not making it clear whether the suspension was permanent or temporary. If the latter, the Commission said that Meta should clearly define when the suspension will be suspended. Meta responded to the Oversight Board’s decision by saying it would stay two years. Later, the company said it would review whether the account was still a public security risk.
With Meta’s announcement of Trump’s reinstatement, the company shared that it is adding “new safeguards” to “prevent repeat mistakes” in the future. According to Mr. Clegg, if Mr. Trump or any other restored account violates the Meta rules on Facebook or Instagram, there will be severe penalties for these repeated offenses. Violations of these rules may result in the removal of the content and a new suspension each from one month to two years, depending on the severity of the violation.
Meta says it will also limit the visibility or reach of content or remove the ability to share content that contributes to public risk, even if it doesn’t violate its policy. The company shared examples such as those that “provide an opportunity for an upcoming election or related to QAnon.”
The decision from Meta to restore Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts is not surprising. Clegg was he pointed possible at an event in September last year. A few months later, Elon Musk announced that Twitter would be reactivating Trump’s account, giving a glimpse of what Meta would do to Trump.
Trump has been locked in a dissociation agreement with his social media platform, Truth Social, so he hasn’t tweeted since being reinstated on Twitter last year. However, soon reports(Opens in a new window) He said Trump wanted to end the deal, so he could post on other social media sites as he plans his 2024 presidential campaign.
Critics of Meta’s election were quick to point out Trump’s growing influence(Opens in a new window) promoted the right-wing content on Truth Social since being suspended from Facebook.
“Today, Meta has chosen to put its profits above American democracy and the real safety of its users,” said Nicole Gill, co-founder and executive director of the advocacy nonprofit Accountable Tech in a statement provided to Mashable. “I want to be clear: there are no good reasons to allow Donald Trump back on Facebook… This is a man who used the platform to start a murderous riot in the United States – and his behavior has been very dangerous. Trump has repeatedly used Social Truth to promote violence , spread election propaganda, and promote homegrown terrorists like QAnon.”
Trump currently has 34 million followers on Facebook. In addition, the former president’s Facebook page can now also use Facebook ads, which were a key part of his previous campaigns.
