This month could be decisive in lifting the ban placed on Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. According to the Financial Times, Meta is set to decide whether to allow the former president regain access to his social media accounts.
Recall that Meta had earlier said it will decide by January 7 whether or not to allow Trump return. The FT, however, reports that the decision could be delayed until later in the month, citing person familiar with the matter.
Meta has already set up a working group to focus on the Trump suspension, according to those with internal knowledge of its operations, the FT adds. The working group includes, staffers from the public policy and communications teams, as well as the content policy team.
In November, Elon Musk confirmed that Twitter had lifted the suspension it placed on Trump’s account after the riot that took place at the Capitol Hill.
The lifting of the suspension runs contrary to an earlier statement made by Musk where he affirmed that no decision on account reinstatements would be made until the company had put together a “content moderation council” to decide on such moves. The decision to reinstate the account however, was made after Musk threw it up to other users on the platform.
Signs of what he was up to became evident when the accounts of The Babylon Bee, Kathy Griffin and Jordan Peterson were all reinstated. Shortly after that, Musk then launched a Twitter Poll, asking for people’s views if he should reinstate that of the former President.
Though, the Poll was a pretty close one—51.8 for and 48.2 against, the decision to lift the suspension was of course, carried out.
Though, Meta is yet to take a decision on Trump’s Facebook return, one thing we are sure of is that the decision will not based on a Facebook online vote like it was with Twitter.
In August, Meta declared that it has no plan to rush the review of the ban it handed out to Donald Trump in 2021.
The social media giant said the review will not be rushed even if the former president declares his candidature for the post of the president of the US.
Facebook said it will stick to its January timetable, and will not remove the ban until that time. Also, the social network giant said the recent FBI search of Trump’s residence in Florida will not affect its timeline.
