Last Updated on 06/06/2021 by Sanskriti
Former President Donald Trump will be banned from Facebook’s services, including Instagram, for at least two years, starting in January 2023. Facebook announced on Friday and this sets an example for all leaders who will break rules on its site.
Two days after the tragic Capitol Hill incident occurred on Jan. 6, Facebook deactivated Trump’s account, claiming he had advocated violence. According to Facebook, the suspension will endure at least two years from the date of the initial block and will only be lifted if the risk to public safety has decreased.
Trump slammed the move as censorship and a betrayal to his supporters.
The board, however, decided that making the ban indefinite was incorrect and allowed it six months to come up with a “proportionate response.”
In the run-up to the November 2022 congressional elections, this new schedule denies Republican Trump a significant social media platform. It does, however, imply that he may be allowed to return to Facebook before the next presidential election, which is scheduled for late 2024.
Trump was permanently banned from Twitter, and his YouTube account was suspended by Alphabet after the brawl. Trump, who shut down his newly established blog this week, has hinted at intentions to build his own platform.
“Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols,” Nick Clegg said in the post, Facebook’s head of global affairs.
The firm’s unprecedented restriction on Trump was reaffirmed in May by Facebook’s oversight board, an independent organization paid by the business that rules on a small fraction of problematic content issues.
In a statement on Friday, Trump criticized the decision and baseless accusations of voter fraud: “Facebook’s ruling is an insult to the record-setting 75M people, plus many others, who voted for us in the 2020 Rigged Presidential Election. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win. Our country can’t take this abuse anymore!” Several investigations have been conducted and no such evidence of election fraud is found.
Trump said, “Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business!”
