Meta has announced the removal of special restrictions on former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, according to an updated blog post on Friday. This move ensures all Presidential nominees are on an equal footing on the platform ahead of the 2024 Presidential election.
When Meta reinstated Trump’s social media profiles in January 2023, it subjected him to stricter penalties than other users. These heightened penalties meant the former President could have faced up to a two-year ban for violating Meta’s community standards. Now, Meta states that Trump will be subject to the same rules as any other Facebook or Instagram user.
Under the standard user rules, violations of Facebook’s Community Standards result in a warning. After two strikes, users can be banned from specific posting features for limited periods. Only after seven violations are users banned from posting for an entire day, and it takes ten strikes to receive a month-long ban.
“In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis,” Meta said in a blog post.
Meta originally banned Trump following the January 6 insurrection in 2021, when Facebook was Trump’s preferred platform for communicating with his supporters. At the time, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated, “The risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” before banning Trump indefinitely. Today, Trump regularly posts to his 34 million followers on Facebook, though he is more active on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Meta’s decision to roll back these stringent penalties comes just before the 2024 Republican National Convention. However, the company clarified that these heightened suspension penalties were a response to extreme circumstances and were never actually enforced against Trump.
Earlier this week, Trump posted a threatening statement against Mark Zuckerberg on Truth Social. The former President vowed to imprison “election fraudsters” and referred to the CEO of Meta by the nickname “Zuckerbucks.” Trump warned Zuckerberg to “be careful.”
With the 2024 elections approaching, Meta’s decision underscores the platform’s commitment to equal treatment of all Presidential candidates, aiming to uphold political expression and public discourse.
