Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced on Wednesday that it would reinstate former President Donald Trump’s access to the social media platforms, two years after he was suspended.
The technology company said that Trump will regain access to his accounts in the following weeks.
Trump’s social media platforms were suspended on January 7, 2021, days after hundreds of people stormed the Capitol allegedly in his name. The social media platforms claimed that the former president’s posts risked inciting more violence.
The former president’s accounts were also removed from other social media platforms, including YouTube and Twitter.
“Two years ago, we took action in what were extreme and highly unusual circumstances. We indefinitely suspended then-US President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts following his praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021,” said Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs.
After critics accused Meta of censoring Trump, the technology company announced it would reverse the suspension because the risk to public safety had “sufficiently receded.”
“The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying — the good, the bad, and the ugly — so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box,” Clegg added. “But that does not mean there are no limits to what people can say on our platform. When there is a clear risk of real-world harm — a deliberately high bar for Meta to intervene in public discourse — we act.”
It is unclear whether Trump will become active again on Facebook and Instagram. After being reinstated on Twitter in November 2022, the former president has not posted anything. Trump has only been active on Truth Social, the social network he started on how own.
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