Meta has lifted the final restrictions on Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the run up to US presidential elections in November.
The ex-US president and convicted felon’s accounts were suspended in 2021 after he praised supporters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January.
Trump’s accounts, which combined have over 60 million followers, were re-instated in 2023 but subject to additional monitoring, which has now been removed, the social media giant said in a blog post.
Meta said it had a responsibility to allow political expression and that Americans should be able to hear from presidential nominees on an equal basis.
I hate to say it, but they’re right. They can’t silence one of the two candidates for the presidency.
I would say that staging a coup definitively breaks the TOS.
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Yes they can. They are a private corporate and can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t target a protected class, and it doesn’t.
And in particular, they didn’t silence him because of politics, but because he was conspiring with insurrectionists. Active treason. Stochastic terrorism.
Has he been convicted of that? We can all wring our hands as much as we want, and god knows I’m not a Trump supporter, but Facebook are not going to embroil themselves into a legal battle over this.
He’s been convicted in the court of public opinion. Facebook doesn’t need to wait for a court to bar him from their platform.
They don’t, but it’s much easier for them this way. It’s mind-boggling that so many in this thread want Facebook to go way out on a limb here and are shocked when the multi-billion dollar company takes the much easier, safer way out. Stop expecting tech megacorps to decide the presidential race for you, people. You may think you want that now, but it’s a VERY bad precedent.
You can criticize them while still not expecting them to do the right thing.
They’ve convicted a hell of a lot of other people for it so far.
So Facebook is supposed to block the GOP presidential nominee because other people were charged of a crime and he was not? We’d all like that, but come on.
no, just cuz he broke their rules… repeatedly… and says violent hateful shit… and spreads misinformation. Trump supporters whine about their bans or posts being removed when they post the vile shit they like to spew. Why does Trump get a pass?
Because that’s much easier for Facebook than dealing with the clusterfuck that would result if they didn’t.
So political leaders get a pass to break all the rules? I don’t understand your reasoning. The rules should be applied only to people without power? Facebook should just always take the “easiest” path for moderation?
What about leaders elsewhere that explicitly call for violence or perpetrate it? Is there a line somewhere?
Unfortunately, this is how it usually works out. Unjust bullshit, but this is the world we live in.
He was banned for years.
Facebook does not have nearly as high a burden of proof as a court of law.
Facebook most likely has a far larger budget for their legal team, too. I don’t think they’d be worried about a lawsuit.
The problem is that it fundamentally makes them a political org to choose one side over the other. There are very strong arguments that insisting on “no political discussion” is an inherently conservative stance, but by allowing one candidate to speak but the other to not they are implicitly supporting the former.
And the US Government has made it clear that they don’t consider a violent insurrection to be treason. So why should facebook go to bat and make themselves an even bigger target come January?
Yes. They have once again sided against their own rules and the law in favor of unlimited disinformation and calls for violence.
NOT because they’re taking a stand against unfair censorship. The real reason is that his stochastic terrorism breeds TONS of engagement and thus advertising income and marketable data.
That would have been true if either both or neither had exhibited a pattern of blatant contempt for the rules of the platform. Since only one did that, it’s preferential treatment to NOT kick him off permanently.
Prosecutors sacrifying full justice and accuracy in exchange for an easier path to conviction isn’t the US government making anything clear.
Because aiding and abetting a fascist uprising by voiding the rules that everyone else has to abide by isn’t an admirable or even acceptable thing to do.
No they didn’t. They prosecuted a LOT of people for that.
That’s the reason. Fuck Facebook’s own rules, they are trying to mitigate an attack by a fascist dictator.
And we just had a supreme court ruling that gives the ringleader immunity for anything he will ever do because he was POTUS for four years.
Individual users? Yeah, ban them because the law applies to them. Orange shitstain? There is no legal ground for him having commit treason so it is purely a decision by the moderation staff of a company who don’t want to get navy seals knocking on the door come January.
Yes. I said that was the reason. Glad we are in agreement.
And considering the American People would rather bicker over whether Biden is old than “holy fuck the nazis have a publicly available plan for how they are going to destroy the country”… when The People clearly won’t have your back, why fight on their behalf?
Imagine piping up to defend the non-existent “right” of a self declared fascist to spew his lies. 🤯
Careful not to choke on that boot…
The fact you think I support Trump or Facebook tells me all I need to know about the quality of the discourse in this thread. No wonder the left can’t get anything done in your shithole of a country.
Whether you like it or not, Canada is heavily dependent on said shithole of a country. You’re similarly as fucked as the rest of us if Trump wins and decides to stop protecting Canada or importing their natural resources in favor of domestic production.