Meta announced Wednesday that it will restore former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts two years after his suspension.
The social media giant has made it clear that Trump must abide by the rules of the platforms.
“The normal course of action is for the public to hear about a former president of the United States and a declared candidate for that office on our platforms,” said Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs. Blog entry. “Now that the suspension period has expired, the question is not whether we choose to have Mr. Trump’s accounts, but whether such exceptional circumstances exist that justify extending the suspension beyond the original two-year period.”
Trump was suspended from Facebook and Instagram after praising those involved in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. The Facebook supervisory board upheld the decision, but criticized the open nature of the suspension. Meta then released a two-year timeline for the suspension, further detailing when public figures can freeze their accounts during times of violence and unrest. A protocol has also been drawn up to be able to react more quickly in the event of a crisis.
Clegg wrote that they assessed the risk to public safety and the current security environment and found that “the risk has been sufficiently reduced.”
“As such, we will Mr. Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will be restored in the coming weeks. However, we are doing this with new guardrails to deter repeat offenders,” Clegg wrote.
The meta announcement follows Twitter’s decision to reinstate Trump’s account under new owner Elon Musk. However, Trump has yet to tweet from the account as he launched his own social media platform, Truth Social. Axios first reported on the recovery of Facebook and Instagram.
Clegg wrote that Trump faces higher penalties for each violation. “If Mr. Trump posts additional content that violates the law, the content will be removed and he will be banned for a period of one month to two years, depending on the severity of the violation,” he wrote. Trump may also have other restrictions on the posting of content that does not go against Facebook or Instagram’s community standards, but “contributes to the type of risk that emerged on January 6, such as: B. Content that delegitimizes or relates to ‘ an upcoming election,” according to QAnon. “Such sanctions may include restrictions on message distribution or access to promotional tools.
“Many people believe that companies like Meta should be removing much more content than we currently do,” Clegg wrote. “Others argue that our current policies make us already overbearing censors. The fact of the matter is that people always say everything on the internet. By default, we let people speak, even if what they have to say is distasteful or factually incorrect.”
There is more to come.
Author: Ted Johnson
Source: Deadline
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
