Meta to Reinstate Trump’s Facebook, Instagram Accounts
Two years after he was banned for his role in the Capitol insurrection, former President Donald Trump will be allowed to return to Facebook and Instagram, where he has a combined 57 million fans and followers, Axios reported.
Perhaps more importantly, Trump will also once more be allowed to run ads on the sites — a vital part of his election strategies in 2016 and 2020.
“We just do not want — if he is to return to our services — for him to do what he did on January 6, which is to use our services to delegitimize the 2024 election, much as he sought to discredit the 2020 election,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, told Axios.
Clegg said Trump will be subject to new rules and restrictions and could face suspensions ranging from one month to two years, should he violate those rules. It does not appear that Meta’s rules currently allow for a permanent suspension.
Trump has previously been unbanned from Twitter, his former social network of choice, but has so far not posted, instead favoring his own Truth Social.
Why it matters: Trump has already announced that he will be running for president, and social networks are grappling with how to handle a leader who has used their services in connection to a violent insurrection in very different ways. While Twitter threw the doors back open with seemingly no restrictions in Muskian fashion, Meta seems to be attempting a more cautious route, surrounded by careful rules and frameworks.
What role social media will play in Trump’s reelection bid remains to be seen, but communicators should prepare for even more volatility on these networks in the future — and the potential that their organizations could be targets of his ire.
