On Wednesday, January 25, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, agreed to restore former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. It’s been two years since they suspended him after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Trump asked Meta to reinstate his accounts, as he prepares to kick start the campaign for his recently announced 2024 presidential bid.
Trump’s campaign team wrote a formal letter to Meta on Tuesday, January 17, asking the company to let him back onto the platform.
The former President also recently got his Twitter account back, after Elon Musk became the new owner.
Twitter had planned to ban the former president from the platform permanently, but when Elon Musk took over, Twitter reinstated Trump’s account in November 2022, with Musk saying he wanted to promote free speech on his platform. Trump has said he prefers his own platform and has not resumed posting on Twitter.
As he goes on the campaign trail, Trump recognizes the power of his social media accounts in reaching voters. The former President had 34 million and 88 million followers on Facebook and Twitter, respectively. He only has about five million followers on his personal platform.
With Trump getting ready to return to Facebook, some people are not too happy. Last month, four Democratic lawmakers wrote to Facebook appealing to them to continue Trump’s ban from the platform.
Democratic House Representative Adam Schiff wrote the letter, signed by three other Democrats, saying that Trump has been posting harmful content on his own platform and that he would most likely do so on Facebook.
Meta’s President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, wrote in a blog post, “Our determination is that the risk [to public safety] has sufficiently receded. As such, we will be reinstating Mr. Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks. However, we are doing so with new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.”