The Meta social networks giant announced Wednesday that it ended the suspension of the accounts of the former president excluded after the Capitol assault in January 2021.
By Damien Leloup (with AFP)
Donald Trump won. Last week, the former American president asked to make his return on Facebook. Meta, to which the social network belongs, accessed its request: the group announced Wednesday, January 25, that it was going, in the coming weeks, “put an end to the suspension” of Donald Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram, two years After the exclusion of the former American president following the attack on the Capitol.
“The public must be able to hear what political figures say in order to be able to make enlightened choices,” justified Nick Clegg, the Meta international affairs manager, in a press release.
“But that does not mean that there are no limits to what people can say on our platform. When there is a risk of prejudice in the real world – a high risk that justifies intervention de Meta in the public debate-we act, “he said.
The former US head of state had been excluded from the social network on January 7, 2021, when he was still in power, for having encouraged his supporters during the attack on the Congress in Washington the day before, a Unprecedented decision, imitated at the time by most consumer social networks, including Twitter.
In a press release, the Meta Oversight Board, the group of independent personalities responsible for deciding on the moderation decisions of Facebook and Instagram, believes that the measures put in place by Facebook since 2021 and the frost of the Donald Trump’s account go in the right direction, but must still be more transparent. “The decision [to reactivate Donald Trump’s accounts] is a crucial moment in the debate on dangerous content published by elected officials,” said the Oversight Board. “As Meta writes, there are divergent arguments on the limits to be fixed, and that is why […] that social networks must act in complete transparency.”
already read on 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 for public security” would have “disappeared”.
The suspension “should never again arrive at a president in office or to anyone who does not deserve sanctions!” Reacted Donald Trump from his account on Truth Social, the social network he launched last year.
Donald Trump’s lawyer had sent a letter to the founder and president of Meta last week, Mark Zuckerberg, the appellant not to “reduce a presidential candidate to silence”.
On November 20, billionaire Elon Musk announced, a few weeks after bought Twitter, that he would reactivate the account of the former American president on this social network – his account had been suspended on January 6, 2021 for “incitement to violence “.
Donald Trump, compulsive user of Twitter throughout his presidency, has not published nothing on his account since his reactivation communicating mainly via his own platform, Truth Social.
The billionaire is, for a few months, held To respect an exclusivity clause which is part of his agreement with TRUTH Social: the former president is committed to publish his messages only on this social network which is mainly aimed at the American conservatives. Already in financial difficulty, Truth Social will be in very poor posture if Donald Trump begins to publish on other networks.