Meta announced plans to reinstate the Facebook and Instagram accounts of former President Donald Trump in the "coming weeks.
" The tech giant suspended Trump from both platforms a day after the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021, citing the possibility of additional violence.
- In an announcement yesterday, Meta said it will reinstate Trump's accounts after determining that the public safety risk has “sufficiently receded."
- It plans to establish "new guardrails" to prevent what it called "repeat offenses" moving forward.
- Any violations of Meta's content policies could result in additional suspensions of a month to two years, according to Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs.
- In a blog post yesterday, Clegg said the U.S. public should be informed about what politicians say — "the good, the bad, and the ugly" — in order to be informed when voting.
- Prior to the suspension, Trump had 34 million followers on Facebook and 23 million on Instagram.
- In a recent letter to Meta, Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign urged the tech giant to reinstate his accounts, arguing that the ban has "dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse."
- In November, Twitter restored Trump's account, which was also banned in January 2021, though the former president has yet to tweet, preferring to use his Truth Social platform instead.