Elon Musk may still be mulling over whether to unban Donald Trump from Twitter, and almost certainly will if given the chance, but the disgraced former president slash 2024 presidential candidate is still persona non grata on Facebook.
Or, at least for now he is, anyway.
Following the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol building, Trump was initially banned from Facebook for 24 hours, which later made the ban quasi-permanent. Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram likewise unceremoniously gave him the boot, and he even lost his ability to post videos to his YouTube channel — as Trump and his enablers used social media to spread disinformation about the 2020 presidential election.
But even in light of his bid for a second term in the White House, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, confirmed Wednesday that for now Trump is still banned from the platform.
However, the caveat is that Trump’s Facebook suspension was for two years, and is set to expire on Jan. 7, 2023.
Another hitch is that now that he is a candidate, Trump will no longer be subject to Facebook fact checks, as the platform’s rules state that elected officials and candidates for office are exempt from having their comments fact checked.
Heidi Beirich, founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism and a member of the Real Facebook Oversight Board, told the Associated Press that Facebook and other social media platforms would be justified in extending their restrictions, or making their bans on Trump permanent. The Real Facebook Oversight Board is a group that has been critical of Meta’s laissez faire way of dealing with extremist content and misinformation.
“The big problem is treating candidates as if they’re in a special category and deserve special treatment,” Beirich said. “If you have a set of rules, it should apply to everyone. The decision shouldn’t be a struggle.”
Be that as it may, it still remains to be seen what will happen once Trump’s suspension comes under review. But in the meantime, at least he always has Truth Social to scream into the void, anyway.
