Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will reinstate former President Donald Trump’s accounts “in the coming weeks,” a spokesperson for the company said in a statement, ending his two-year suspension.
The company initially suspended the former president’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“To assess whether the serious risk to public safety that existed in January 2021 has sufficiently receded, we have evaluated the current environment according to our Crisis Policy Protocol, which included looking at the conduct of the US 2022 midterm elections, and expert assessments on the current security environment, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president, global affairs, wrote in a statement. ” Our determination is that the risk has sufficiently receded, and that we should therefore adhere to the two-year timeline we set out.”
The move comes a little more than two months after Trump announced his third bid for the White House. Days later, Twitter CEO Elon Musk reversed the former president’s ban on the platform. Trump has not posted from his Twitter account since it was reinstated, opting to stay on his own social media platform, True Social.
In a statement posted to Truth Social, Trump addressed the news – without indicating whether or not he will post to his Facebook and Instagram accounts – while decrying the fact that they removed him from the platform in the first place.
“FACEBOOK, which has lost Billions of Dollars in value since ‘deplatforming’ your favorite President, me, has just announced that they are reinstating my account. Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!” Trump wrote. “THANK YOU TO TRUTH SOCIAL FOR DOING SUCH AN INCREDIBLE JOB. YOUR GROWTH IS OUTSTANDING, AND FUTURE UNLIMITED!!!”
Clegg noted that they will be adding “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.”
“In light of his violations, he now also faces heightened penalties for repeat offenses – penalties which will apply to other public figures whose accounts are reinstated from suspensions related to civil unrest under our updated protocol,” Clegg detailed. “In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation.”
“As a general rule, we don’t want to get in the way of open, public and democratic debate on Meta’s platforms – especially in the context of elections in democratic societies like the United States,” Clegg wrote. “The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying – the good, the bad and the ugly – so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box.”
“But that does not mean there are no limits to what people can say on our platform,” Clegg added. “When there is a clear risk of real world harm – a deliberately high bar for Meta to intervene in public discourse – we act.”
