The tech giant’s global affairs president said this move will level the playing field and allow all U.S. presidential hopefuls recourse to political expression.
The multinational tech giant, Meta, will undo all former restrictions placed on former U.S. president Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, Al Jazeera reported on Saturday.
“…Former president Trump, as the nominee of the Republican Party, will no longer be subject to the heightened suspension penalties,” Nick Clegg, Global Affairs President at Meta, penned in a news release.
This move is to ensure all political candidates are able to share content on a level playing field in the run up to the November 5 presidential election, Clegg added.
Trump will no longer be subject to former heightened suspension policies initiated in response to what the Meta official, and former British deputy prime minister, referred to as “extreme and extraordinary circumstances”.
This decision follows earlier agreement where, in exchange for ending the two-year suspension placed on his accounts in 2021, Trump’s Facebook and Instagram channels were reinstated.
However, “new guardrails” were put in place to prevent repeat violations of their community standards, Meta said.
“In light of his violations, he now also faces heightened penalties for repeat offences,” Clegg wrote in 2023.
Further breach would result in the removal of offensive content and a suspension, which could range from a month to two years – depending on the severity of the offence.
Storming of the Capitol
Trump’s Meta social media channels were suspended on January 7, 2021 following the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, where at least seven people died amid the riot.
The attack in Washington was spurred by Trump’s false claims of a stolen election victory due to a conspiracy against him.
“We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump said in his call to action to supporters before the Capitol was stormed.
In response, Meta took down the video of Trump rallying protesters from its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
In one of his last Facebook posts before the suspension, Trump decried the presidential election results as “fraudulent or inaccurate” after his bid for re-election against Joe Biden was unsuccessful.
In a rant on the Truth Social platform on July 9, the former president took aim at who he referred to as ‘Zuckerbucks,’ saying that if elected, he will “pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time”.
Clegg described the former president’s misuse of Meta’s platform as “a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols”.
In the immediate aftermath, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, denounced Trump’s involvement in the riot as undermining “the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden”.
He further added that the presence of Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric on Meta’s platforms posed a threat of inciting further acts of violence.
