Former President Donald Trump’s Facebook account will be suspended for two years, according to a statement from the social media company on Friday.
That ban will last through Jan. 7, 2023, two years to the day after the platform first suspended Trump’s account. At that time, Facebook will “look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded.”
“We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest,” Nick Clegg, the company’s vice president of global affairs, wrote in a statement on Friday.
People can still see the former president’s page and read posts on it, but Trump and others who have access to his account will not be able to create new posts.
“In establishing the two year sanction for severe violations, we considered the need for it to be long enough to allow a safe period of time after the acts of incitement, to be significant enough to be a deterrent to Mr. Trump and others from committing such severe violations in future, and to be proportionate to the gravity of the violation itself,” Clegg wrote.
In a statement, Trump called the ruling “an insult” to those who voted for him in the 2020 election, which he falsely called “rigged.” (There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, a statement backed up by officials of both parties, including the former president’s own attorney general.)
“They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win,” Trump wrote. “Our Country can’t take this abuse anymore!”
When asked about the suspension at a press briefing on Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that social media companies have a “responsibility” to take action when it comes to combatting misinformation.
“Our view continues to be, though, that every platform — whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, any other platform that is disseminating information to millions of Americans — has a responsibility to crack down on disinformation, to crack down on false information — whether it’s about the election or even about the vaccine,” Psaki said.
“We learned a lot from President Trump — the former president — over the last couple of years about his behavior and how he uses these platforms,” she added. “Feels pretty unlikely that the zebra is going to change his stripes over the next two years. We’ll see.”
Facebook said it will heighten penalties for public figures during times of civil unrest and violence. In a color-coded chart on its blog post Friday, it said those who violate its policies during this time can be restricted from posting for anywhere between a month (yellow) and two years (red). Future violations, it said, will be met with “heightened penalties, up to and including permanent removal.”
Facebook also plans to end a contentious policy championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that automatically exempted politicians from rules that banned hate speech and abuse. The company has said it has never applied this policy to Trump.
The social media giant said on Friday that while it will still apply this “newsworthiness” exemption to certain posts it deems to be in the public interest even if they violate Facebook rules, it will no longer treat material posted by politicians any differently from that posted by anyone else. In addition, Facebook said it will make public whenever it does apply the exemption to a post.
Facebook suspended Trump indefinitely from posting on its platforms after a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying, “we believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.”
“We love you. You’re very special,” Trump told rioters in one post. In the other, he called the rioters “great patriots” and told them to “remember this day forever.”
The Facebook Oversight Board, a quasi-independent group, upheld the social media giant’s decision to ban former Trump from its platform in early May, but also criticised the indefinite nature of the suspension.
“The Board has upheld Facebook’s decision on January 7, 2021, to restrict then-President Donald Trump’s access to posting content on his Facebook page and Instagram account,” the board wrote in its decision. “However, it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension. Facebook’s normal penalties include removing the violating content, imposing a time-bound period of suspension, or permanently disabling the page and account.”
Those violated Facebook’s rules against praising or supporting people engaged in violence, the board said, warranting the suspension. Specifically, the board cited Facebook’s rules against “dangerous individuals and organizations,” which prohibit anyone who proclaims a violent mission and bans posts that express support or praise of these people or groups.
Spectrum News’ Austin Landis and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
