Meta Decides to Welcome Trump Back

Facebook, Instagram suspensions to be dropped 'in coming weeks'
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 25, 2023 7:05 PM CST
Meta Decides to Welcome Trump Back
President Donald Trump looks at his phone during a roundtable with governors in 2020 at the White House.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Two years after former President Donald Trump was suspended from Facebook and Instagram over his posts supporting the insurgents who attacked the Capitol, Meta has decided to welcome him back. The announcement was made in a blog post by Nick Clegg, the company's president of global affairs, the BBC reports. "The suspension was an extraordinary decision taken in extraordinary circumstances," Clegg wrote. The issue for the company, he said, is whether current conditions justify keeping Trump's suspension in effect, per CNBC. The suspension will be revoked "in the coming weeks," Clegg said. A lawyer for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign requested the move, per the Washington Post.

Meta decided the country has calmed down. "The risk has sufficiently receded," Clegg said. That conclusion is based on expert security assessments as well as the relatively uneventful midterm elections last fall, he said. It returns the company to its pre-Jan. 6 policies. "The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying," he wrote. But like someone on probation, Trump will be subject to increased penalties the next time Meta decides his posts are out of line. The offending posts will be removed and a suspension of one month to two years imposed, Clegg said, per CNBC. Newly updated rules say all public officials will be subject to such punishments for posts involving civil unrest. (More Donald Trump stories.)

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