A new report has it that Trump may soon be allowed back on Facebook by the year 2023 as Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg has made it known that the company will make its decision as soon as January 2023.
Trump got his account suspended on Facebook due to the pro-Trump protest which ultimately led to the storming of the US Capitol building on January 6th.
Ever since then, the former President’s accounts were suspended on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter while other social platforms soon follow suit.
In an event hosted by digital news startup Semafor, Clegg made the comment that Meta might reconsider allowing the former president back by early 2023.
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This is the first time Meta has made such possibility known since the company’s Oversight Board forced the platform to commit to a timeline for the suspension.
Even though there have been reconsideration in the past on whether to allow Trump back on the platform, the Oversight Board has made the recommendation about content moderation on Meta’s platform to uphold the suspension back in 2021.
It also said that Facebook needed to announce an outright ban of Trump’s account or provide a timeframe in which the suspension would be lifted.
Even though Trump’s Facebook account can be viewed by users, nobody has been able to make a post or access the account for that matter.
The ban was said to last for a whopping two years when Meta decided to uphold the suspension back in June 2021 even though the social media giant said it would require an assessment on the risk to public safety if it’s even going to lift the ban.
It then proceeded with the ban while accessing the situation internally.
Clegg reiterated those concerns at the D.C. event, saying Facebook “will talk to experts, weigh the risk of real world harm and act proportionally.”
Trump has reportedly shown his interest in contesting once again for the 2024 US presidential election and getting his account back by 2023 would aide that. However, he won’t be able to make posts for the midterm elections coming later this year.
Trump’s response to the ban led to the creation of his own platform called Truth Social which currently has about 4 million followers.
For comparison, Trump currently has more than 34 million followers on his still-suspended Facebook page.
In recent months, Trump has increasingly shared more and more content on Truth Social related to the far-right-wing conspiracy group, QAnon. Facebook banned this type of content in 2020.
What we don’t know yet is whether Facebook will proceed with the ban by January 2023 or will reconsider its position even though Clegg said the company is yet to finalize on that.
