Facebook has announced a two-year ban of former President, Donald Trump from its platforms, including Instagram, until at least January 2023.
The company’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said that Trump’s actions on its social media networks “constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols.”
The Republican politician was indefinitely suspended from all Facebook platforms over January 6 US Capitol riot, in which his supporters violently tried to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.
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Trump’s account will remain suspended until 7 January 2023, and Mark Zuckerberg’s company says he will only get it back if the “risk to public safety has receded.”
Recall that Facebook’s independent Oversight Board upheld the initial suspension of Trump last month, but they criticized the company over the indefinite time period, which led Zuckerberg to introduce the new rules.
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Clegg stated;
Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols. We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on 7 January this year.
He added;
At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded. We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest.
If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded.
Facebook also announced that if Trump is ever cleared to use Facebook products again he will face “a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions” that would be applied if he broke user rules.
Clegg added that these would include the permanent removal of Trump’s pages and accounts.
He stated;
In establishing the two-year sanction for severe violations, we considered the need for it to be long enough to allow a safe period of time after the acts of incitement, to be significant enough to be a deterrent to Mr. Trump and others from committing such severe violations in future, and to be proportionate to the gravity of the violation itself.
Reacting, the former US president called the ban “an insult” in a statement on Friday, saying;
They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win. Our Country can’t take this abuse anymore!
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Trump relied on social media during his presidency to circumvent the media and talk directly to his supporters, especially his Twitter account, which was also suspended.
The former US president has since released statements through his Save America political action committee. He also tried to launch a blog, but that was short-lived.
