Thu 26 January 2023:
The two-year suspension of former US President Donald Trump from Facebook and Instagram is being lifted, according to the social media giant Meta.
Calling the suspension an “extraordinary decision taken in extraordinary circumstances”, Meta issued a press release on its website on Wednesday saying it would allow Trump to return to its platforms “in the coming weeks”.
“Social media is rooted in the belief that open debate and the free flow of ideas are important values, especially at a time when they are under threat in many places around the world,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, wrote in the release.
The ban was first put into effect on January 7, 2021, the day after supporters of Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol in an effort to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which the Republican had lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump continued to spread misinformation about the election results in one of his final Facebook messages before his suspension, repeating the falsehood that the vote had been tainted by fraud.
In Wednesday’s decision, Meta said it set out to “assess whether the serious risk to public safety that existed in January 2021 has sufficiently receded”, determining that it had.
Trump founded his own social media company, Truth Social, in the wake of his removal from Meta and other social media companies.
On Wednesday, he posted on his Truth Social account about his reinstatement to Facebook and Instagram, saying: “Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!”
Earlier this month, lawyers for the former president had sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta, requesting his reinstatement. Trump announced in November that he plans to run for a second term as president in 2024.
That same month, Trump was reinstated to the social media platform Twitter after new owner Elon Musk held an online poll about whether to bring the ex-president back.
The company has faced criticism for not doing more to censor hate speech, misinformation and other violations of its content rules. In 2021, for instance, Rohingya refugees filed a lawsuit against the Facebook owner for its alleged role in promoting violence against the ethnic group in Myanmar.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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