Meta to restore Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts

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Jan 25 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms Inc ( META.O ) said on Wednesday it will restore former US President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks, following a two-year suspension after the deadly riots at the Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

The restoration of his accounts could give a boost to Trump, who announced in November that he would run again for the White House in 2024. He has 34 million followers on Facebook and 23 million on Instagram, platforms that are primarily vehicle for political outreach and fundraising.

His Twitter account was restored in November by new owner Elon Musk, though Trump has never posted there.

Free speech advocates say it’s appropriate for the public to have access to messaging from political candidates, but critics of Meta have accused the company of lax moderation policies.

Meta said in a blog post on Wednesday that it has “put new guardrails in place to deter repeat offences.”

“Should Mr. Trump post further infringing content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation,” wrote Nick Clegg, the president of Meta of global affairs, in the blog post.

The decision, although widely expected, drew sharp criticism from civil rights advocates. “Facebook has policies but they don’t enforce them,” said Laura Murphy, a lawyer who led a two-year audit of Facebook that ends in 2020. “I worry about Facebook’s capacity to understand the real damage to the world that Trump is doing: Facebook has been too slow to act.”

The Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, Free Press and other groups also expressed concern Wednesday over Facebook’s ability to prevent any future attacks on the democratic process, with Trump still repeating his misrepresentation. -claiming that he won the 2020 presidential election.

Others said it was the right decision.

Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and a former ACLU official, defended the reinstatement. He previously endorsed the company’s decision to suspend Trump’s account.

“The public has an interest in hearing directly from candidates for political office,” Jaffer said. “It would be better if the major social media platforms erred on the side of leaving speech, even if the speech is offensive or wrong, so that it can be addressed by other users and other institutions.”

OTHER REACTIVATIONS?

The decision to ban Trump is a polarizing one for Meta, the world’s largest social media company, which before Trump’s suspension had never blocked the account of a sitting head of state for violating content rules. this.

The company unceremoniously revoked Trump’s access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts after removing two of his posts during the violence on Capitol Hill, including a video in which he repeated his false claim of massive fraud on voter in the 2020 presidential election.

It then referred the case to its independent oversight board, which decided the suspension was justified but its indefinite nature was not. In response, Meta said it would reverse the suspension two years after it began.

Meta’s blog post on Wednesday suggested it may reactivate other suspended accounts, including those punished for their involvement in civil unrest. The company said those restored accounts will be subject to stricter reviews and penalties for violations.

Whether, and how, Trump will seize the opportunity to return to Facebook and Instagram is unclear.

Trump hasn’t sent any new tweets since taking back his Twitter account, saying he prefers to stick to his own Truth Social app. But his campaign spokesman told Fox News Digital last week that a return to Facebook “will be an important tool for the 2024 campaign to reach voters.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump responded to his return to the Meta apps, saying: “Such a thing should never happen to a sitting President, or anyone who doesn’t deserve revenge!” He did not say if or when he would start posting on the Meta platforms again.

Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat who previously chaired the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the decision to reinstate him.

“Trump has incited an insurrection,” Schiff wrote on Twitter. “Giving him back access to a social media platform to spread his lies and demagoguery is dangerous.”

Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas and Katie Paul in Palo Alto; additional reporting by Greg Bensinger, David Shepardson, Kanishka Singh, Eva Mathews and Yuvraj Malik; Editing by Kenneth Li and Rosalba O’Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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