Facebook has lifted its ban on former President Donald Trump

Meta released its most controversial user – former President Donald Trump – back on Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook and Instagram, along with Twitter, YouTube, and Snap, suspended Trump after the former president praised rioters when they stormed the capital on January 6, 2021. using Facebook to push for a “violent rebellion” against American democracy.

Two years later, Meta says Trump poses no immediate risk to public safety. On Wednesday, it said it would end the suspension of Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks. The decision follows calls on Twitter last month to lift the permanent ban on Trump.

“The public needs to be able to hear what politicians have to say – the good, the bad and the ugly – in order to make the right choice at the ballot box,” wrote Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg in a company blog post. “But that doesn’t mean there’s no limit to what people can say on our platform.”

In the post, Clegg wrote that Meta determined the risk to public safety had “reduced enough,” but that Meta would add new fences to Trump’s posts in the future if they contributed to “the type of risk that occurred on January 6,” such as his post. delegitimizing elections or supporting QAnon. The new penalties include Meta limiting the reach of Trump’s posts on Facebook feeds, restricting access to advertising tools, and removing reshare buttons from offending posts. If Trump continues to violate Facebook’s rules, the company could suspend him again for a month to two years.

Indeed, the US is not in the middle of a transition of power between presidents, nor is it in the grip of a national pandemic that has fueled political frustration.

But one thing is that not yet replaced is Trump himself. The former president did not withdraw his opinion rejecting the election that rioters said inspired violence on January 6. He continued to spread false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged”, to attack local election workers tasked with counting ballots. , and to promote conspiracy theories like QAnon. Supporters’ belief that the election was rigged has left democracy experts, and about three in five Americans, fearful of more violence during the 2024 presidential election.

If Trump really starts using Facebook again – which seems to be the case – every time he posts election lies or hidden threats, or expands on dangerous QAnon theories, the company will have to decide if the post violates its rules, and what the consequences will be.

“People are going to scrutinize every post that Trump makes,” said Katie Harbath, a former director of public policy at Facebook and a Republican political operative who now runs her own technology policy consulting firm, Anchor Change. “Life will be hell” for platforms like Facebook if Trump returns, he added.

Meta has better belt up. During Trump’s presidency, Facebook faced employee revolts, major advertiser boycotts, and political backlash from Democratic Party leaders over Trump’s posts on the platform. Two years have passed since Trump’s ban has been a reprieve because of the need to minimize the public fallout over Trump’s posts.

Now Trump is Facebook’s problem again.

Why Trump may be returning to Facebook

For a while, it looked like Trump wouldn’t return to mainstream social media even if given the chance. He’s had access to Twitter for a month but still hasn’t tweeted.

This may be because they are contractually obligated to post to their own company’s social media apps. Trump is legally required to first post on Truth Social before posting to other social media platforms (although there is a major exception for “political messages”), per a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But now Trump – who last month announced his candidacy for president in 2024 – is reportedly pursuing an exclusive contract with Truth Social, and plans to return to Twitter and Facebook. Last week, Trump’s legal team wrote a letter to Meta requesting a meeting with the company’s leaders and requesting that the company lift the suspension.

While Twitter may be Trump’s platform of choice for engaging the media and sharing his unfiltered thoughts, Facebook is the most powerful social media app for running a political campaign. This is due to the size of Facebook’s active user base – almost 3 billion people – compared to more than 350 million on Twitter and 2 million on Truth Social.

“Any candidate needs to be where the voters are. As far as digital campaigns go, Facebook is the biggest gathering place in the country,” Republican digital campaign strategist Eric Wilson, who heads the Center for Campaign Innovation, told Recode.

Facebook is also a key mechanism for Trump’s fundraising. During Facebook’s suspension, they are not allowed to run ads or fundraisers on the platform.

If and when Trump starts posting again on Facebook and Instagram, be prepared to see more of what he shares on Social Truth: From April 28 to October 8, Trump shared 116 posts that added “QAnon followers and sympathizers,” and 239 posts that contained ” harmful election-related disinformation,” according to technology watchdog group Accountable Tech. He also made comments promoting conspiracy theories of election fraud that critics say encourage harassment of election workers, such as threats of hanging, firing squads, torture, and bomb blasts.

“Trump’s rhetoric has only gotten worse” since he was suspended from Facebook, said Nicole Gill, president of Accountable Tech. “They have committed themselves to the ‘big lie’ and the denial of the election.”

Last Thursday, Trump wrote on Social Truth, in part, “The Election was Rigged and Stollen, Committees of political Hacks and Unelected Thugs refused to discuss it, so it went on.”

According to Facebook’s rules, a post like the one above that contains the claim that the 2020 election is a fraud will not violate the rules because it is talking about the previous election, not the current election. But if Trump delivers like that during the 2024 election, Facebook will face a tough call.

Questions abound about how Facebook will handle a second Trump

Now that Trump has been invited back to Facebook and Instagram, Meta’s policy on political speech will draw attention again.

Today, Facebook deals with political speech in a different way. While companies have rules against harmful speech such as Covid-19 health misinformation or promoting dangerous groups, they can issue a “noticeable” exemption to allow posts if they determine it is in the public interest. In 2019, Clegg announced that the company would treat politicians’ speeches as news content “which should, as a general rule, be seen and heard,” but in 2021 reversed the policy, saying that politicians’ content would no longer be automatically considered. into the news – although Facebook can still make exceptions for politicians on a case-by-case basis. The bar for Facebook to actually block the speech of politicians remains high: only if the content can cause harm in the real world that outweighs the public interest to leave it up.

Wilson, a Republican digital strategist, said Facebook should be more permissive with political speech.

After Facebook imposed a speech policy against one politician, Wilson said it opened the door for politicians to “make refs” and ask Facebook to suspend or limit opposing political speech.

“It’s easier to say, ‘Oh, this is the criteria you used to keep Trump off the platform when he was the candidate. And then I give you five examples where my opponent has also crossed that line,'” Wilson told Recode.

Other consultants and policy experts Recode spoke to, such as Casey Mattox, a lawyer and free speech expert at the conservative libertarian political advocacy group America for Prosperity, said Facebook should hold politicians to the same standards as everyone else. There should be one rule for everyone, and if there is, Facebook has to pay apart attention to politicians, because their speech has more influence.

“I think he would be better off if [Meta] It’s basically saying, ‘Look, these are the rules, and the president and everyone else has to abide by the same rules,'” Mattox said.

One thing these consultants and experts agree on, regardless of what they think is the right approach: Facebook needs to be more transparent about how it applies its policies when it comes to high-profile politicians like Trump.

“The decision is important for Meta in the context of, does it adhere to a set of rules that can be viewed and viewed as neutral rules? [Rules] which depends on basic standards, which do not differ according to political orientation?, “said David Kaye, former UN expert on freedom of expression and law professor at UC Irvine. “I think this is the key.”

Meta has been criticized by the watchdog – a group of independent academics, human rights experts, and lawyers who advise companies on content decisions and policies – which needs to be clearer about the rules and implementation of political speech, especially after Trump’s decision. In response, Meta said he would be open when making exceptions to the rules for news figures like Trump and developing a “crisis policy protocol” for how to handle speech in times of heightened democratic violence.

But Meta still makes decisions behind closed doors. In deciding on Trump’s reinstatement, Facebook reportedly created a special team of policy, communications and other business executives, with Clegg, the company’s top policymaker — a former British politician — at the helm. The company is also consulting with “external stakeholders” but has not revealed who they are.

If Facebook is truly transparent about Trump’s decision, it will set itself apart from Twitter, whose relatively new CEO and owner Elon Musk has given little information about bringing back Trump except for Musk’s belief in freedom of speech and the results of 24-hour public polls. Musk ran on his Twitter page.

“Meta can be a non-Musk type here; they can really emphasize the point that free speech on our platform is generally not just about the right of speakers to say whatever they want,” said Kaye.

Regardless of how Facebook justifies Trump’s continued presence on its platform, it’s in for a wild ride. Although today’s decision can be seen as the end of two years of uncertainty, in many ways, it is only the beginning.