Donald Trump has officially had his Facebook and Instagram accounts restored by Meta after a two-year ban following the fatal January 6 US Capitol riot.
The social media giant said in January that the one-term president would have his suspension lifted “in the coming weeks” and his accounts became active again on Thursday.
Mr Trump, who has announced he is running again for the White House in 2024, now has access again to a Facebook account which in January had 34 million followers and 23 million on Instagram.
Sir Nick Clegg, the former UK deputy prime minister who is now Meta’s president for global affairs, announced in a January blog post that the company had made the decision after assessing “whether the serious risk to public safety that existed in January 2021” had “sufficiently receded”.
“We have evaluated the current environment according to our Crisis Policy Protocol, which included looking at the conduct of the US 2022 midterm elections, and expert assessments on the current security environment,” he stated.
“Our determination is that the risk has sufficiently receded, and that we should therefore adhere to the two-year timeline we set out. As such, we will be reinstating Mr Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks”.
And the former politician said that the company was adding “new guardrails” to Mr Trump’s account “to deter repeat offences”.
Specifically, he said that the former president “faces heightened penalties for repeat offences” if he violates the company’s community standards.
Those “penalties” will also be levied on “other public figures whose accounts are reinstated from suspensions related to civil unrest” in the future.
“In the event that Mr Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation,” he added.
