Meta has announced that it has removed restrictions on Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. American voters should have an opportunity to learn the views of the presidential candidates on an equal basis before the elections scheduled for November, it was argued.
On July 15, when the four-day Republican convention begins in Milwaukee, it is decided that Trump will formally be declared the presidential nominee.
In assessing our responsibility to express political views, we believe the American people should listen to presidential candidates on the same basis.
– Meta said in a statement on its website. The agency asserted that the restrictions on the operation of Trump’s accounts were “(…) a reaction to extraordinary circumstances” and acknowledged that there was no need to enforce them.
Trump Accounts Freeze
In January 2021, Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were suspended when the Republican Party, then the outgoing president, expressed positive comments about the participants of the capital attack on January 6 of that year. Meta decided to freeze his accounts completely for two years.
After this period, Trump regained access to them, but he faced more severe penalties, e.g. Facebook or Instagram social standards. No such violation has been detected for a year and a half. Since then, the former president has posted campaign information and memes against Democratic nominee Joe Biden on his official profiles in the November election.
All US presidential candidates are subject to the same social standards as all (other) Facebook and Instagram users, including policies designed to prevent hate speech and incitement to violence.
Meta information.
According to The Guardian, Trump’s critics and online safety activists fear that META’s decision could lead to misinformation and incitement to violence on the Republican president’s accounts.
Biden’s campaign condemned Mark Zuckerberg’s company, writing in a statement that the decision demonstrates Meta’s “greed and recklessness” and constitutes a “direct attack on our security and democracy.”
Biden campaign spokesman Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said, “Restoring (Trump’s) access (to social media accounts) is like giving your car keys to someone you know, driving your car into a crowd and going over a cliff.”
After Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, his accounts on other social media platforms including Twitter (now X), Snapchat and YouTube were suspended. In response, Trump launched his own social networking site, Truth Social.
After Elon Musk bought X in 2022, Trump’s account was restored, but there have been no new entries since 2023. Trump returned to YouTube in March 2023. His Snapchat account is still blocked.
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