Lawyer writes to Zuckerberg
Donald Trump wants his Facebook account back
01/19/2023, 00:01
After radical Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, Facebook suspended the top Republican’s account. Now Trump wants to use the social network again. A lawyer for the former US President wrote a letter to Facebook boss Zuckerberg.
Former US President Donald Trump has demanded the release of his Facebook account, which was suspended after the Capitol storm on January 6, 2021. “The suspension of President Trump’s Facebook account has dramatically distorted and impeded public discourse,” Trump attorney Scott Gast wrote in a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that has become public. Trump should not be “muzzled”.
“Donald J. Trump is a declared candidate for the office of US President,” Gast continued in the letter dated Tuesday. “In numerous opinion polls, he is the leading contender for the Republican nomination. In other polls, President Trump beats several leading Democrats in an electoral duel, including President (Joe) Biden and Vice President (Kamala) Harris.”
Gast therefore insists on a meeting with the management of the Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta to talk about a “quick” recovery of Trump’s user account on Facebook. Facebook blocked the account a day after radical Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, killing five. The platform later set the duration of the ban at two years from the day of the ban on January 7, 2021. At the end of this time, experts would check whether the “risk to public safety” had decreased. When asked, Meta said a decision should be announced “in the coming weeks”.
In addition to Facebook and Instagram, other online platforms blocked Trump’s user accounts, citing fears of further violence. The short message service Twitter lifted the ban on the right-wing populist in mid-November, a few weeks after it was taken over by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk. Shortly before, Trump had announced that he wanted to run again in the 2024 presidential election.
The ex-president, whose most important mouthpiece was Twitter, has not yet posted any new tweets. The 76-year-old says he wants to focus on the online platform he founded, Truth Social. However, Trump is far from reaching as broad a public via Truth Social as he once did via Twitter. Basically, his presidential candidacy has by far not developed the momentum he had hoped for; many Republicans want to enter the 2024 presidential race with a different candidate than the highly controversial ex-president.