Social media giant Meta announced on Wednesday that it would “end the suspension” of Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks, two years after the former US president was banned following a the assault on the Capitol.
“The public needs to be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed choices,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s head of international affairs, said in a statement.
“But that doesn’t mean there are no limits to what people can say on our platform. When there is a risk of harm in the real world — a high risk that warrants Meta’s intervention in the public debate — we act,” he said.
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.
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” had “disappeared”.
The suspension “should never again happen to a sitting president or to anyone who does not deserve sanctions”, reacted Donald Trump from his account on Truth Social, the social network he launched last year. .
Last week, the former president officially asked to be able to return to Facebook.
His lawyer had sent a letter to the founder and president of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, calling on him not to “reduce a presidential candidate to silence”.
The politician had already been readmitted to Twitter on November 19, 2022, four days after declaring his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.
He has yet to post on that account, however, communicating primarily through his own platform, Truth Social.