Bye Trump!
CNN reports that Facebook has altered its rules to give former President Donald Trump the boot from its platform until January 7, 2023.
The date will mark two years since he was initially suspended following the attacks at the nation’s Capitol building.
From there, Facebook says that it will assess the circumstances to see if he should even be allowed back onto the social media platform.
This move seals the deal that would prevent Trump from posting from his Facebook account which had tens of millions of followers and just ahead of the 2022 midterm election.
However, the announcement leaves a window of opportunity open for the possibility of the suspension being lifted ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
In a post on Friday (June 4), Facebook’s vice president for global affairs, Nick Clegg, said that once the two-year period is up, the social media platform “will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded. We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly, and other markers of civil unrest. If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded.”
According to Clegg, the two-year suspension which is the result of Trump supporters storming the Capitol building serves as “long enough to allow a safe period of time after the acts of incitement, to be significant enough to be a deterrent to Mr. Trump and others from committing such severe violations in future, and to be proportionate to the gravity of the violation itself.”
Not only will Trump suffer the consequences of the new rules, but Facebook is also doubling down on new guidelines for all users and notes that “enforcement protocols” will be applied in exceptional cases like this incident.
