Donald Trump Returns To The Biggest Social Media Sites
Meta has announced it will soon reinstate the Facebook and Instagram accounts of former President Donald Trump.
If you’ve missed learning about the wonderful healing properties of “covfefe,” don’t worry; former President of the United States of America Donald Trump is on his way back to Facebook and Instagram. In a Wednesday blog post by Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, the company announced they would soon be reinstating Trump’s social media accounts, as the end of his two-year suspension from the platforms approaches. The post also assures that they have put what Clegg calls “guardrails” in place “to deter repeat offenses.”
“The normal state of affairs is that the public should be able to hear from a former President of the United States, and a declared candidate for that office again, on our platforms. Now that the time period of the suspension has elapsed, the question is not whether we choose to reinstate Mr. Trump’s accounts, but whether there remain such extraordinary circumstances that extending the suspension beyond the original two-year period is justified.”
-Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs
As Clegg recounts in his post, Donald Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram were originally suspended indefinitely in early 2021 after the then outgoing President used his online presence to praise the January 6th rioters. Facebook’s Oversight Board upheld the suspensions, but criticized their open-ended nature. Meta responded by changing the suspension from an indefinite period of time to two years.
Determining that Donald Trump’s posts no longer represent the same threat to public safety, Meta has determined to reinstate his accounts. Clegg’s post assures readers that the company has adopted new protocols to allow them to respond more quickly in times of crisis, and that the former President could once again be taken off the platforms. He writes that if Trump “posts further violating 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.”
This isn’t Donald Trump’s first return to mainstream social media. Elon Musk’s eventful takeover of Twitter included the promised reinstatement of the former President’s account. However, if Trump’s return to Meta’s platforms is anything like his return to Twitter, we still may not hear from him much.
While Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account, so far the former President has not taken advantage of his restored privileges, and his most recent tweet is still what he posted on January 8th when he announced he would not attend Joe Biden’s inauguration. Trump has continued to restrict his social media presence to Truth Social where he did respond to Meta’s announcement in his usual humble manner:
“FACEBOOK, which has lost Billions of Dollars in value since ‘deplatforming’ your favorite President, me, has just announced that they are reinstating my account. Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution! THANK YOU TO TRUTH SOCIAL FOR DOING SUCH AN INCREDIBLE JOB. YOUR GROWTH IS OUTSTANDING, AND FUTURE UNLIMITED!!!”
-Donald Trump on Truth Social
According to Deadline, part of the reason why Donald Trump may still be sticking strictly to Truth Social is a deal he has with the platform. The former President is “generally obligated” to post content there, and Deadline claims he’s not allowed to repost on other social media platforms until six hours after his Truth Social posts.
