Trump banned on Facebook & Instagram for at least next two weeks

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has via his platform made an announcement that Donald Trump will be blocked from using both Facebook and Instagram “for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.” The step taken, temporarily on Wednesday was following Trump’s posting of content that incited his followers to violence, but now Zuckerberg says the ban is extended “indefinitely,” extending at least until Biden takes over as President.

Trump’s video post on both Facebook and Instagram were removed yesterday, in which the president called for rioters who laid siege to the Capitol building in Washington to go home - but in which he also said “we love you” to the same violent terrorists. They followed that action with a 24-hour account lock, preventing Trump from posting via his Facebook and Instagram accounts during that period.

Zuckerberg acknowledges that Trump content has in the past been labeled or removed when found to violate its policies, but that he had been allowed up until now to “use our platform consistent with our own rules.” He says that has now changed, due to “use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.”

Facebook’s decision to suspend the president’s account, even temporarily, is a shocking reversal from its longstanding attitude toward the world leader. Of course, that leader only remains in power for a few more days. With Trump out on January 20, Facebook will be dealing with President-elect Joe Biden and a Congress and administration very interested in imposing regulations on its business.

Historically, Facebook has been very permissive of Trump’s bad behavior on the platform, perhaps most famously when it did nothing to the president’s account after he called for state violence against racial justice protesters. Trump’s phrasing, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” echoed the same statement famously made by a racist Miami police chief in the 1960s.That situation alone plunged Facebook into internal turmoil, as employees pushed back against the company’s attitude toward Trump. Yesterday news reported that Facebook shut down internal conversations about the Trump supporters who staged an insurrection at the Capitol, freezing comment threads calling for Trump to be removed from the platform.

Throughout his administration, Facebook has gone out of its way to accommodate Trump’s use of the platform. In 2019, facing pressure to take a more principled stance, Mark Zuckerberg struck a defiant pose in a grand speech at Georgetown, doubling down on the idea that Facebook had no responsibility to remove dangerous political content.

“We can either stand for free expression… or we can decide the cost is simply too great,” Zuckerberg said. “We must continue to stand for free expression.”Meanwhile, Twitter on Thursday revealed that Trump has complied with its requirement to delete three offending tweets before reinstating access to his locked account on that platform - meaning Trump will regain access to his account 12 hours from the time of deletion, or later on Thursday.