Facebook has lifted restrictions imposed on former US president, Donald Trump after the January 6 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in a statement said Trump have now been placed on equal footing on the platform with President Joe Biden.
The social media giant had in 2021 placed a ban on Trump for using its platform to encourage his supporters who stormed the Capitol to overturn Trump’s defeat by President Biden.
Meta lifted the ban last year but announced Trump would be subject to “guardrails” such as “heightened suspension penalties” if posts violated its standards.
Now, the company has completely removed those restrictions, reasoning that while they were put in place following the “extreme and extraordinary circumstances” of the Capitol attack, Trump had not done anything to run afoul of them.
“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,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs wrote in a statement posted to the company’s website Friday.
Clegg added that both Biden and Trump are still subject to the same “community standards” that apply to all other users of the company’s platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook, the world’s largest social media site, had been both a publicity tool and a crucial place to tap donations from supporters for both of Trump’s previous campaigns.
These days, however, he has been posting frequently on his own Truth Social site, which he launched after Facebook and others suspended him.
