At 8:36 PM on January 6, 2021, Facebook publicly announced it was imposing a 24-hour block on then-President Donald Trump, following the deadly riot and insurrection on Capitol Hill. The following day Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, citing the “use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government,” announced the social media giant had banned Trump “indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”
On January 8, 2021, Twitter announced its permanent suspension of Donald Trump’s account, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” after the January 6 insurrection. Citing two tweets earlier that day, Twitter “determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
The company found the tweets “are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service.”
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Two years later Donald Trump is preparing to return to both social media platforms, according to NBC News.
Several factors are responsible.
Over at Facebook, its Oversight Board decided in June of 2021 Trump’s suspension would be in place for just two years, starting in January of 2021, but also appeared to make clear the suspension would be lifted after that time, although its stated it would “look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded.”
“When the suspension is eventually lifted,” Facebook’s Oversight Board said at the time, making clear the suspension would be lifted “when,” and not “if,” “there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if Mr. Trump commits further violations in future, up to and including permanent removal of his pages and accounts.”
The company has not yet made any decision public, but is expected to do so soon.
And at Twitter, Elon Musk purchased the company and reinstated numerous far right wing accounts, including Trump’s.
Trump has repeatedly stated he would not return to Twitter after starting his own social media platform. Truth Social pales in comparison to both Twitter and Facebook.
“With access to his Twitter account back,” NBC News reports, “Trump’s campaign is formally petitioning Facebook’s parent company to unblock his account there after it was locked in response to the U.S. Capitol riot two years ago.”
The Trump campaign is urging Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to allow him to return.
“’We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse,’ Trump’s campaign wrote in its letter to Meta on Tuesday, according to a copy reviewed by NBC News.”
Tech Policy Press editor Justin Hendrix notes the letter to Meta comes on the “Same day a J6 Committee draft report detailed how he used social media to incite an insurrection.”
Meta says it “will announce a decision in the coming weeks in line with the process we laid out.”
NBC News, citing two anonymous Trump confidantes, reports, “Trump has sought input for weeks about hopping back on Twitter and that his campaign advisers have also workshopped ideas for his first tweet.”
Another, a Trump advisor, warned if the Facebook ban on Trump is extended, House Republicans will pressure Meta. NBC’s reporting suggests they would use hearings on how federal law treats social media platforms as “leverage.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and two other colleagues sent Meta a letter urging the ban be extended.
“Trump has continued to post harmful election content on Truth Social that would likely violate Facebook’s policies, and we have every reason to believe he would bring similar conspiratorial rhetoric back to Facebook, if given the chance,” they wrote.
AFP’s White House correspondent Sebastian Smith suggests it is, “Worth remembering Trump was thrown off FBook and Twitter because those platforms were his principle avenues for deluding an enormous part of the country into believing that the 2020 election was ‘stolen’.”
Noah Bookbinder, the president of the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), posted this warning: “Donald Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election that he lost and incited a violent insurrection to try to keep himself in power. That he would be given back the megaphone of Twitter, and now maybe Facebook, is beyond irresponsible.”
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