Facebook announced Friday that former President Donald Trump’s accounts will be suspended for two years, freezing his presence on the social network until early 2023, following a finding that Trump stoked violence ahead of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
At the end of the suspension, the company will assess whether Trump’s “risk to public safety” has subsided, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, wrote in a blog post. He said Facebook will take into account “external factors” such as instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest.
Facebook also announced that it would end a contentious policy that automatically exempted politicians from rules banning hate speech and abuse, and that it would stiffen penalties for public figures during times of civil unrest and violence.
The former president called Facebook’s decision on the suspension “an insult.” The two-year ban replaced a previous ruling that ordered Trump to be suspended indefinitely.
“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!” Trump said in a news release.
Social platforms like Facebook and Twitter have become indispensable tools for politicians to get their messages out and to raise small-dollar donations. Without the megaphone of Twitter and the targeted fundraising appeals his campaign mastered on Facebook, Trump could be at a serious disadvantage relative to other politicians.
Trump has teased running for president again in 2024. His aides say that he has been working on launching his own social media platform to compete with those that have booted him, but one has yet to materialize. A blog he launched on his existing website earlier this year was shut down after less than a month. It attracted dismal traffic.
On Facebook, Trump’s suspension means that his account is essentially frozen. Others can read and comment on past posts, but Trump and other account handlers are unable to post new material. Twitter, by contrast, has permanently banned Trump from its service, and no trace of his account remains.
“What they’ve done here is shield themselves from potential presidential rage” with a reassessment of Trump’s account in two years, said Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University communications professor.
In a color-coded chart on its blog post, the company said public figures who violate its policies during times of crisis can be restricted from posting for a month (yellow) or as long as two years (red). Future violations, it said, will be met with “heightened penalties, up to and including permanent removal.”
The policy that exempted politicians from rules on hate speech and abuse was once championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The company said it never applied the policy to Trump, but on Friday backtracked to say it did use it once, in 2019 for a video of a rally on his Facebook page.
The social media giant said it will still apply the “newsworthiness” exemption to certain posts it deems to be in the public interest, even if they violate Facebook rules. But it will no longer treat material posted by politicians any differently than other posts. In addition, Facebook said it will make public whenever it does apply the exemption to a post.
The announcements are in response to recommendations from the company’s quasi-independent oversight board. Last month, that panel upheld a decision by Facebook to keep Trump suspended, but the board said the company could not merely suspend him indefinitely. It gave the company six months to decide what to do with his accounts.
In its decision last month, the board agreed with Facebook that two of Trump’s Jan. 6 posts “severely violated” the content standards of both Facebook and Instagram.
“We love you. You’re very special,” Trump said to the rioters in the first post. In the second, he called them “great patriots” and told them to “remember this day forever.”
Those comments violated Facebook’s rules against praising or supporting people engaged in violence, the board said. Specifically, the board cited rules against “dangerous individuals and organizations” that prohibit anyone who proclaims a violent mission and ban posts that express support for those people or groups.
The two-year suspension is effective from Jan. 7, so Trump has 19 months to go.
Ahh @facebook. Maybe Fauci should tell Zuck!
But seriously, the open alliance between Big Tech and government agencies on #covid raises all sorts of questions, especially this one – if @facebook is serving as an arm of the government, why doesn’t the First Amendment apply to it? pic.twitter.com/EJDPNSFzHS
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) June 4, 2021
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Associated Press writers Tali Arbel, Matt O’Brien and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
© 2021 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
At the end of the suspension, the company will assess whether Trump’s “risk to public safety” has subsided, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, wrote in a blog post. He said Facebook will take into account “external factors” such as instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest.
I find it a fools errand to rely on and allow these radical leftist companies to control who has a platform and who doesn’t in this country. How we allowed them to take total control of our schools, social media, entertainment speaks volumes as to how incompetent the Right really is. And that we continue to allow this to stand as is is even more shocking.
These are the same clowns who were banning people for saying the Wuhan Virus came from Wuhan. They shouldn’t be running tech companies they should be in prison.
“At the end of the suspension, the company will assess whether Trump’s “risk to public safety” has subsided”,,,,,,,,and after the 2022 election winning Trump supporters will have assessed whether Facebook’s “Risk to Honest Government” has subsided and in 2024 When Trump gets re-elected see them dismantled by a Trump face lift that removes their sagging political skin, free speech wrinkles and Constitutional monopolistic blemishes. Facebook is not a legal entity to be empowered to dispense penalties, financial or otherwise. They act like they are the voice of THE governing entity, not the voice of THE PEOPLE. They have proven themselves poor suspenders who cannot even hold up their trousers long enough to hide their naked exposed power grabs, let alone thier Demonic Democrat party Tramp Stamps.
LETS HOPE we win back both the house/senate AND the white house, so we can FINALLY DISPENSE OUR OWN PUNISHMENT< on the heads of these traitors in big tech.
Correct! And you didn’t mention “Global Warming”, which has evolved into “Climate Change”.
They get away with it because we (American taxpayers) 1) trusted our ‘elected officials’ to do their sworn jobs of PROTECTING their citizens 2) were busy building this country into the best country known to man 3) our government chose to a) fight unending and unnecessary foreign wars and b) poured billions of dollars developing and re-building other countries in the hopes of “expanding democracy”. All the while we let theCommunists/Socialists/Marxists/ Globalists infiltrate and indoctrinate every institution unchecked!
WE THE PEOPLE should be suspending “FACEBOOK” forever !!! We got along just find with e mails before facecrook !
Agreed. NOT just farcebook, but also get rid of ticktok, twitter, you tube and google!
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like are going to have to start going by Socialist Media rather than Social Media. They are assuming way too much power over what is acceptable speech to them and they are being allowed to get away with it. The things they allow from a Leftist slant are far more damaging than anything put out by Conservatives. They are bending the law and societal tolerance in order to become speech control police. They flat out violate the First Amendment. We’re either Constitutional here or we aren’t.
“following a finding that Trump stoked violence ahead of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.”
“A Finding” by Whom?? The traitorous Nasty Nancy Pelosi?
President Trump Never stoked violence, He said that the election was manipulated and stolen, It Was.
Trump Said to ‘Peacefully and Patriotically’ March to the Capitol.
Nancy Pelosi admitted an unfortunate truth about her 1st fabricated impeachment “farce”
– It hinges on witness’s “allegations” not “proof”.
Pelosi Impeachment: “It’s Not A Question” Of “Proof” It’s About “Allegations”
https://youtu.be/7dzhIxeF204
The @#$%& Pelosi got away with it once, so she tried it again.
But the Senate saw through her Con and dropped Pelosi’s impeachment charges both times.
Their finding “he did it”, is all BULL.. THEY ARE saying that, cause they DISLIKE HIM.. RABIDLY.
“freezing his presence on the social network until early 2023, following a finding that Trump stoked violence ahead of the deadly Jan. 6”. Yep, Trump stated to the crowd to march peacefully and patriotically to the Capitol. Hey Facebook, why is Iran allowed to say death to America and death to Israel? Hey Facebook, why is China allowed to say that they are sterilizing the Uyghurs and putting them in camps? Facebook, change your name to Facebook Pravda Of The Central Committee Of The Communist Party.
Big deal!! Who cares about a communist propaganda organization run by a sissy? Trump is TOO GOOD for a small time fly by night organization like worthless facebook.
When the socialist CEO of Facebook teams up with Biden and
company to try and stop the 2020 election audits from being completed, we conservatives know that there are serious election voter fraud incidents that have taken place. The dems are so scared that their voter fraud will come to light that they are pulling out all of the weapons they can find to stop the audits before their fraud is uncovered. This is the time when all conservatives must insist that these audits are completed by raising our voices and commenting on every story that comes out about this issue. We cannot lay back and allow FB to stop this audit, or any other big tech company to do so. Publicly call them out if they try using their power to interfere with the audits.
As conservatives we must use our voices as weapons or we will be faced with never having another conservative in the White House.
WAKE UP CONSERVATIVE AMERICANS AND SUPPORT THE AUDITS WITH THE POWER OF YOUR VOICES AND WRITTEN WORDS!
Proof of voter fraud has already come to light. The supreme court chose to ignore it. There is only one solution left.
I HOPE that Trump was serious in making his OWN VERSION OF Farcebook/twitter, for us conservatives !
What about Maxine waters ???? Has her account been Suspended for Inciting Violence ???? No they are just suspending Republican s conservatives from speaking. That’s censorship. I said all lives matter
on Microsoft and my tweet was Deleted, due to their guidelines.
I doubt they care about what maxine said.. OTHER than to give it two thumbs up…
Serious questions. I don’t use Facebook so I can’t check myself. Are BLM and antifa still allowed on Facebook? How about Louis Farrakhan? What about the Ayatollah of Iran or Hamas? Or as another poster mentioned, Mad Maxine Waters?
More than likely, YES THEY ALL are still allowed.. And in both BLM and Water’s case, are probably ‘highly recommended’..
This is just one more example of why these big tech companies need to be regulated. With no restrictions they can do as they please with no recourse by anyone, or organization, they may hurt. Wonder why the likes of old battleaxe mad maxine Waters, Pelosi, the criminals running blm and antifa, hamas, Iran, N.Korea, and China that are just a few of the socialist left wingers they allow to say most anything without blocking them? The right needs to win back control of congress and the white house so that some laws and rules can be enacted that put some restraints on these big tech companies, otherwise there will be no “free speech” for everyone in this country, only for those that agree with them.