Meta set to restore Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts two years after ban
Just over two years after suspending him in the wake of the January 6 Capitol attack, Facebook-parent company Meta has said that it will restore former President Donald Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram in the upcoming weeks.
The day after the attack on January 6, when Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election results, Meta made the historic decision to forbid Trump from posting on Facebook and Instagram.
In the future, Clegg added, Trump might be suspended for as long as two years at a time for breaking platform rules.
As he prepares for a third run for the White House, Trump will finally have access to his enormous and effective communications and fundraising platforms thanks to the reactivation of his Facebook and Instagram accounts.
The choice was made a few months after Twitter lifted its ban on him.
Trump has ignored Twitter in favor of continuing to publish on his own social media network, Truthsocial, therefore it is unclear at this time whether he will return to the Meta platforms.
Trump praised Meta’s decision to overturn the suspension of his account in a post on his own platform, Truth Social, and stated that “such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of vengeance.”
Despite having traditionally used Twitter as his favorite social media site, Trump has a sizable following on Facebook and Instagram, with 34 million and 23 million followers, respectively, as at the time of his reinstatement. Previous Trump campaigns have spent millions on running Facebook advertisements and praised the efficiency of the social network’s tailored advertising features.
Anthony Romero, director of the ACLU, reacted to the news by calling the choice “the right call,” joining a number of other organizations in doing so. The largest social media platforms are key players when it comes to our collective power to express and hear other people’s speech online, he continued. Even when it offends, they should err on the side of permitting a variety of political discussion.
