The former American president had been banned from the social network after his supporters attacked Congress on January 6, 2021.
The social networking giant Meta announced on Wednesday January 25 that it would, in the coming weeks, “end the suspensionof Donald Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram, two years after the exclusion of the former American president following the assault on the Capitol.
“The public must be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed choices”justified Nick Clegg, the head of international affairs at Meta, in a press release. “But that doesn’t mean there’s no limit to what people can say on our platform. When there is a risk of harm in the real world – a high risk that justifies Meta’s intervention in the public debate – we act.he specified.
The former American head of state was banned from the social network on January 7, 2021, while he was still in power, for having encouraged his supporters during the attack on Congress in Washington the day before, an unprecedented decision. , imitated at the time by most mainstream social networks, including Twitter. The interested party reacted shortly after by affirming that no president should be excluded from social networks. “Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting president, or anyone else who doesn’t deserve punishment!”commented the Republican, candidate for the presidential election of 2024, on his Truth Social network.
“Any decision on this subject will be fiercely criticized”
In June 2021, Facebook had decided that the exclusion would last two years, and that the Republican billionaire could only return when the “risks to public safety” would have “gone”. Last week, the former president officially asked to be able to return to Facebook. His lawyer had written a letter to Meta founder and chairman Mark Zuckerberg, calling on him not to “silencing a presidential candidate”. The politician had already been readmitted to Twitter on November 19, 2022, four days after declaring his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. However, he has not yet posted a message on this account, communicating mainly through his own platform. , TruthSocial.
Meta took “the right decision. Like it or not, Mr. Trump is one of the nation’s leading political figures and it is in the public interest to hear what he has to say.”reacted Anthony Romero, the director of the powerful association of civil rights ACLU He further notes that “Some of the most shocking messages Trump has posted on social media have been used as evidence against him and his administration in lawsuits.” “This is a calamitous and irresponsible decision by Meta, which will (…) fuel the spread of hatred and misinformation”, for its part commented on the “real Facebook supervisory board”a very critical association of the social network.
“We know that any decision on this subject will be fiercely criticized”, underlined Nick Clegg. The world number two in online advertising is at the heart of the debate between supporters of stricter content moderation, to clean up the platforms – generally on the left of the American political spectrum – and those who accuse the big platforms of “censorship”especially against the Republicans, without proof.
“An extraordinary decision”
Suspending a president from power was “an extraordinary decision, made in extraordinary circumstances”, recalled Nick Clegg. Meta determined that “the risk to public safety had sufficiently diminished” to restore the accounts of the president, but with the new safeguards in place, in particular against repeat offenders, to deter new violations of the rules of the two social networks.
The company had, in fact, adopted a new grid of sanctions in 2021, after a particularly tense American presidential campaign on the platforms and the invasion of the Capitol on the day of the formalization of Joe Biden’s victory. In addition to his support for his supporters that day, Donald Trump had been hammering his “Big Lie” theory for months – unfounded allegations that the 2020 presidential election had been his “stolen”.
“If Mr. Trump posts any infringing material again, it will be taken down and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the seriousness of the offense”, detailed Nick Clegg. Meta will thus be able to curb the spread of messages that do not pose concrete risks but contribute to “undermining the legitimacy of an election”.