NEW YORK, NY
Facebook, Inc on Friday announced that it may allow former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts to be reinstated in January 2023.
At that time, the social media company will reevaluate whether the risk to public safety of allowing Trump back onto its services has receded.
“We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest,” the company said in a blog post. “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.”
If Trump is allowed back on the service, there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if Trump further violates the company’s content moderation rules, Facebook said.
This two-year suspension will prevent former President Donald Trump from using Facebook or Instagram to broadcast to his followers until after the 2022 U.S. midterm elections.
The former President had been banned from Twitter and Facebook after he urged his supporters to “stop the steal,” and called them “great patriots” in the midst of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
Four people died that day at the Capitol, and a law enforcement officer died the following day after suffering two strokes. Two other officers present during the riot took their own lives in the aftermath.
Following the social media bans, he launched a new communication tool called From the Desk of Donald J. Trump that features videos and statements by the former President but on Tuesday his spokesman Jason Miller said the page has been shuttered.
