Meta will restore Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts: they were blocked for more than 2 years

Just over two years after the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, was banned from Facebook and Instagram, Meta, the owner of the platforms, said it would restore his social media access. Writes about it The New York Times.

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Trump, who had the most popular Facebook account when he was banned, "in the coming weeks" will regain access to his accounts, which collectively had hundreds of millions of followers, the Meta said. In November Trump's Twitter account was also restored., where he has been blocked since January 2021, which together gave him more opportunities to participate in the election campaign in 2024.

Meta suspended Trump from their platforms on January 7, 2021 — the day after hundreds of people stormed the Capitol on his behalf, saying his messages could provoke more violence. Trump's accounts on other popular social networks, including YouTube and Twitter, were also suspended that week.

But Meta, which has been accused by critics of censoring Trump and other conservatives, decided to lift the lockdowns as it determined the public safety risk had "decreased enough" since January 2021. The company specified that this would add guardrails to "prevent repeat offenders" in the future.

“The public should be able to hear what their politicians have to say – the good, the bad and the ugly – so they can make informed choices,” said Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of international affairs. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t restrictions on what people can say on our platform.”

In a post on his Truth Social, Trump said that "'deplatforming' should never again happen to a sitting president or anyone else who doesn't deserve retribution."

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Meta has been at the center of the debate about free speech on the internet and who should have the right to decide what can be posted and what should be taken down. The suspension of Trump's accounts was a stark demonstration of the power of social media platforms and whether they have too much control and influence over public discourses online.

The impending reinstatement of Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts was immediately criticized by Democratic lawmakers and disinformation experts, who said the move would allow the president to spread divisive and inflammatory posts.

"The Capitol community is still picking up the pieces of the Jan. 6 uprising that Trump instigated, and now it's back on the virtual crime scene," said Ian Szakowski, an Illinois Democrat.

But Anthony Romero, chief executive of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the company's decision was "the right one" because Trump is a leading political figure and the public is interested in hearing his opinion.

“Although the government cannot force platforms to broadcast certain statements, this does not mean that the largest platforms should engage in political censorship,” Romero said.

It is unclear if Trump, who said in November that he would run for president in 2024, will become active again on Facebook and Instagram. He founded Truth Social, in which he has a financial stake.

Trump has not posted to Twitter since the platform reinstated his account in November. Truth Social is currently the only social network he is active on. YouTube did not say if it would allow the 45th president to return to the platform.

In a post on the Meta blog, Clegg wrote that company executives preferred to allow more speech on Facebook and Instagram, even when the posts were "obnoxious or factually incorrect."

But Meta, according to Clegg, is taking steps to prevent future incidents. According to him, Trump could be subject to another block for a period "from one month to two years, depending on the severity of the violation."

The company is considering taking other action against those who may not be clearly violating its rules but contribute to "such a risk as happened on January 6th," Clegg explained. Posts that delegitimize elections, or, for example, are related to the QAnon conspiracy theory can be "downvoted" in the Facebook and Instagram feeds, that is, they will be moved down and become less visible.

In addition, Meta may temporarily restrict access to its promotional tools to "recidivists" and remove the "Share" button from posts that violate its rules, effectively limiting their ability to spread. Posts can also be restricted from algorithmic recommendation to other users. But the company will still display posts that violate its policies on the account page, even if they restrict content sharing.

When Meta blocked Trump in January 2021, Mark Zuckerberg, the company's chief executive, said the president's use of Facebook to "condour, not condemn, the actions of his supporters at the Capitol Building worries people in the US and around the world."

The company removed several of Trump's posts about the Capitol riot and first froze his accounts for 24 hours. This was soon expanded to the "indefinite term" category.

Since then, Meta has tried to explain its Trump blocking process or its policy, which has separate standards for public figures who break its rules. Opponents of this approach have criticized the company for its double standards on some high-profile individuals and have argued that the most important decisions were largely based on Zuckerberg's whims.

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In May 2021, the Review Board (an external body made up of international experts, academics and former politicians) concluded that Zuckerberg was right to suspend Trump's account. But they said that the company needs to decide on a specific time period for this suspension.

The board said Trump's indefinite suspension was "inappropriate" because it did not become a punishment clearly stated in Facebook's user policies. In its ruling, the board asked the company to develop clearer guidelines and effectively handed over the decision on how to handle Trump's accounts to Meta management.

In June 2021, the company announced that they would suspend Trump for at least two years and reconsider the decision by the end of January 2023.

In recent years, Zuckerberg has ceded more control of political decisions at Meta to Clegg, a former UK Deputy Prime Minister and career politician. In February 2022, Clegg was named Meta's president of global communications, effectively overseeing the company's most important policy decisions.

While Clegg has built a process and a team to address these issues, the responsibility still falls on Zuckerberg.

“The fact is, people will always say all sorts of things on the internet,” Clegg wrote. “We believe it is necessary and possible to draw a line between content that is harmful and should be removed, and content that, no matter how objectionable or inaccurate, is part of the vibrant life of a free society.”

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