Social media giant Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is letting former President Donald Trump back onto that platform as well as Instagram after he was suspended two years ago due to the Jan. 6 melee at the Capitol. The company announced the news with a statement:
- We will be ending the suspension of Mr. Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks.
- We’ve put new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.
- The public should be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed choices.
I bolded the last sentence because it’s so hypocritical. “The public should be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed choices.” Yes, yes they should—so why did you ban him in the first place?
It remains to be seen whether Trump will return to his formerly prolific social media posting habits. He was reinstated to Twitter in November of 2022 but has yet to issue a tweet, preferring to focus instead of his own Truth Social account. However, if he does come back, expect things to be a lot more entertaining:
Trump weighed in quickly, blasting Meta for banning him in the first place and reminding them that they’ve lost billions in advertising revenue since he was kicked off:
His attorneys had already been pushing for the former president to be allowed back on to advertise to the voters who get and share their news on Facebook. Meta’s announcement went on to issue warnings and threats to the former president should he step out of line again:
Meta said that the lifting of Trump’s ban is also coming with new guardrails to deter repeat offenders, including heightened penalties for public figures who are returning from suspension related to civil unrest.
“The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying — the good, the bad and the ugly — so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box,” Meta added in a statement announcing its decision.
The decision to reinstate Trump could have huge implications for his 2024 presidential campaign. Currently, he has almost 88 million followers on Twitter and had roughly 35.4 million on Facebook and another 24.6 on Instagram before his bans. That’s a whole of people he’s been unable to communicate with as he did so effectively—and controversially—in the past. In contrast, he has less than 5 million fans on Truth Social. The removal of the ban is sure to hurt Adam Schiff, who Sister Toldja reported as late as December was advocating to keep The Donald off the platforms.
My bet is that Trump won’t be able to resist the temptation to return to all three platforms in the future—he simply has too much fun with social media to let the opportunity pass by.