Meta made an announcement that former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will no longer have special restrictions placed on them, according to a recent blog post. The company stated that this decision was made in order to ensure that all Presidential nominees have equal opportunities on their platform leading up to the 2024 Presidential election.
When Trump’s social media profiles were reinstated by Meta in January 2023, he was subjected to stricter penalties compared to other users on the platform. These penalties meant that the former President could have faced a ban of up to two years for violating Meta’s community standards. However, Meta has now stated that Trump will be held to the same penalties as any other user on Facebook or Instagram.
For regular users, breaking Facebookâs Community Standards will result in a warning. After two warnings, users may be banned from specific posting features for a limited period of time. It takes seven violations for users to be banned from posting for a whole day, and 10 strikes will lead to a month-long ban.
Meta mentioned in a blog post that they believe in allowing political expression and that the American people should have the opportunity to hear from all Presidential nominees on an equal basis.
The ban on Trump was initially put in place by Meta following the events of the January 6 insurrection in 2021. At that time, Facebook was Trump’s primary way of communicating with his supporters online. CEO Mark Zuckerberg had stated that the risks of allowing the President to continue using the platform were too high, leading to Trump’s indefinite ban. Nowadays, Trump is active on Facebook for his 34 million followers, but he tends to be more engaged on his own platform, Truth Social.
The decision to remove the special restrictions on Trump’s accounts comes just before the 2024 Republican National Convention. However, Meta clarified that these heightened suspension penalties were meant for extreme circumstances and were never actually enforced against Trump.
Recently, Donald Trump made a threatening statement towards Mark Zuckerberg on Truth Social, where he stated that he would put “election fraudsters” in prison and referred to the CEO of Meta by his latest nickname, “Zuckerbucks.” Trump warned Zuckerberg to “be careful.”
