Meta is considering letting former President Donald Trump back on Facebook after banning him for two years following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He could be back on the social media platform in a few weeks, if approved.
Facebook initially banned Trump from the platform on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the Capitol riot. Mark Zuckerberg said at the time the president’s use of the platform to condone — rather than condemn — the actions of his supporters at the Capitol “rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world.”
Months later, in June, the former president was banned from Facebook for two years dating back to Jan. 7, without a guarantee that he would be allowed to return to the platform.
“At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, wrote in a blog post in June of 2021. “We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest.”
“If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded,” Clegg added.
Trump said Thursday that “Facebook has been doing very poorly since they took me off” and has “become very boring.”
“Hopefully, Facebook will be able to turn it around. Maybe their first step should be to get away from the ridiculous change in name to Meta, and go back to ‘Facebook,'” he said in a statement. “Whoever made that decision, and the decision to take me off, will go down in the Business Hall of Fame for two of the worst decisions in Business History!”
After Trump was banned from Facebook, as well as Twitter and YouTube, he announced plans to create Truth Social as “a platform that will not discriminate on the basis of political ideology.”
Truth Social has touted itself an alternative to Facebook as well a new online destination for Trump’s supporters and other political conservatives. It launched in February last year.
Khristopher J. Brooks contributed to this article.
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