The blocked accounts of former US President Donald Trump on the online platforms Facebook and Instagram are released again. “We will end the suspension of Mr. Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram in the coming weeks,” the parent company Meta said on Wednesday. The accounts were blocked after radical Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“The public should be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed decisions,” Meta said. The online giant, founded by Mark Zuckerberg, also said that “new protective barriers” had been put in place to prevent violations of the platforms’ rules.
Meta – then still Facebook – had blocked Trump’s accounts on the platforms a day after the Capitol storm with five dead. The company later set the duration of the ban at two years from the day of the ban on January 7, 2021.
At the end of this time, experts would check whether the “risk to public safety” had decreased. A Trump lawyer recently wrote to Zuckerberg asking for the ex-president’s Facebook account to be released.
In addition to Facebook and Instagram, other online platforms blocked Trump’s user accounts, citing fears of further violence.
The short message service Twitter lifted the ban on the right-wing populist in mid-November last year, a few weeks after it was taken over by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk. Shortly before, Trump had announced that he wanted to run again in the 2024 presidential election.
The ex-president, whose most important mouthpiece was Twitter, has not yet posted any new tweets. The 76-year-old has previously stated that he wanted to focus on the online platform Truth Social, which he founded. (AFP)
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