The blocked accounts of the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, on the online platforms Facebook and Instagram are released again. “We will end the suspension of Mr. Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks,” parent company Meta said yesterday. Accounts were blocked after radical Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“The public must be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed decisions,” said Meta. The online giant, founded by Mark Zuckerberg, also said that “new protective barriers” had been put in place to prevent violations of platform rules.
Meta – then still Facebook – blocked Trump’s accounts on the platforms a day after the Capitol storm left five dead. Subsequently, the company set the duration of the ban at two years from the date of the ban on January 7, 2021. At the end of that time, experts would check whether the “risk to public safety” had diminished. A Trump lawyer recently wrote to Zuckerberg asking that the former president’s Facebook account be released.
In addition to Facebook and Instagram, other online platforms also blocked Trump user accounts, citing fears of further violence. Short message service Twitter lifted its ban on the right-wing populist in mid-November last year, a few weeks after Elon Musk took over. Shortly before, Trump had announced that he wanted to run again in the 2024 presidential election.