Meta to end restrictions on Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts

The decision is based on company's 'responsibility to allow political expression' and keep voters informed ahead of US presidential election

Donald Trump created his own platform, Truth Social, after he was banned by Facebook, Instagram and Twitter following the US Capitol riot in January 2021. AFP

Meta Platforms will be ending its restrictions on Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, in keeping with what it said was its role in informing US voters in the lead-up to November's presidential election.

Accounts belonging to the former president and convicted felon were suspended indefinitely by Meta's social media platforms on January 7, 2021, a day after he encouraged his supporters to storm the US Capitol, resulting in the deaths of five people.

In January 2023, California-based reinstated Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, but with measures in place to deter repeat offences.

Now, 18 months after that reinstatement, Meta said ending the restrictions on Trump – the presumptive Republican nominee – is based on its “responsibility to allow political expression”.

“We believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for president on the same basis. As a result, former President Trump … will no longer be subject to the heightened suspension penalties,” Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, wrote in the updated blog.

He added that the restrictions have not had to be deployed, considering that the penalties “were a response to extreme and extraordinary circumstances”.

Meta, however, made it clear that all political candidates remain subject to Facebook and Instagram's community guidelines.

“We will review accounts subject to this protocol on a periodic basis to determine whether heightened suspension penalties for community standards violations remain appropriate,” Mr Clegg said.

“We will make this determination by weighing our responsibility, as outlined by the oversight board,” which was formally launched in October 2020 to police content on the world's biggest social media platform.

Trump is on course for a rematch with Democratic US President Joe Biden, who defeated the billionaire in arguably the most heated election in US history.

The November vote is also shaping up to be incendiary, following a chaotic first presidential debate, in which Mr Biden stumbled at times, raising calls for him to step down from the race.

Trump, meanwhile, is a prolific user of social media, particularly X when it was still known as Twitter, using his channels as his main means of communicating with his supporters.

He has a large following – 34 million on Facebook, 25 million on Instagram and 87.2 million on X, which is the ninth-highest.

The then-Twitter also permanently banned Trump on January 9, 2021, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”. Elon Musk, who bought the company for $44 billion in October 2022 and eventually renamed it X, reinstated Trump in November 2022 after running a poll among users.

However, Trump had decided not to return to X and has only tweeted once, on August 25, 2023, since the insurrection.

Trump's shutdown from social media drove him to create his own platform, Truth Social, which also has guidelines to weed out misinformation.

It also gives the former president a less hostile base, despite a meagre 4.83 million followers as of 2023, according to data from Statista.