Facebook Inc on Friday suspended former US President
Donald Trump until at least January 2023 and announced changes to how it will treat
world leaders who break the rules on its site.
اضافة اعلان
Facebook had suspended Trump's account the day after the
deadly January 6 Capitol Hill riot, determining he had incited violence. That
suspension will last at least two years from the date of the initial block and
would only be lifted if the risk to public safety has receded, Facebook said on
Friday.
Trump criticized the decision as a form of censorship and an
insult to his voters.
This new timeline denies Republican Trump a major social
media megaphone ahead of the November 2022 congressional elections. However, it
means he may be able to return to Facebook well before the next presidential
election in late 2024.
Trump has been permanently banned by
Twitter and remains
suspended by Alphabet's YouTube after the riot. Trump, who this week shut down
his recently-launched blog, has teased plans to start his own platform.
"Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr.
Trump's suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of
our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement
protocols," Facebook's head of global affairs Nick Clegg said in the post.
Facebook's oversight board, an independent group funded by
the company who rule on a small slice of controversial content decisions, in
May upheld the company's unprecedented block on Trump. However, the board ruled
it was wrong to make the ban indefinite and called for a "proportionate
response."
In a statement on Friday, Trump slammed the decision and
repeated false claims of voter fraud: "Facebook's ruling is an insult to
the record-setting 75M people, plus many others, who voted for us in the 2020
Rigged Presidential Election. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this
censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win. Our Country can’t take
this abuse anymore!" Several investigations have not found evidence of
election fraud.
Trump added, "Next time I'm in the White House there
will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It
will be all business!"
Facebook said it would work with experts to decide when the
public safety risk had subsided for Trump to be restored to its platforms. It
said it would evaluate factors including instances of violence, restrictions on
peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest.
It also said there would be a set of escalating sanctions that
would be triggered if Trump broke further rules that could lead to his
permanent removal.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, speaking to reporters,
said of Facebook's decision on Trump that it felt "pretty unlikely that
the zebra is going to change his stripes over the next two years, we'll
see."
Policy changes
Social media companies have grappled in recent years with
how to handle world leaders and politicians who violate their guidelines.
On Friday, the Nigerian government said it had indefinitely
suspended Twitter's activities in the country, two days after the company
removed a post from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish
regional secessionists.
In a major reversal that also came as part of Facebook's
Friday responses to its oversight board, Facebook said it was "removing
the presumption we announced in 2019 that speech from politicians is inherently
of public interest."
The company said it now would weigh violative content from
politicians against the potential risk of harm in the same way it does for all
users. It will also disclose when it does use its "newsworthiness"
exemption.
However, a Facebook spokesman confirmed politicians' posts
will remain exempt from third-party fact-checking.
Facebook has come under fire from those who think it should
abandon its hands-off approach to political speech, but has also been
criticized by those, including Republican lawmakers and some free-expression
advocates, who saw the Trump ban as a disturbing act of censorship.
Its decision on Trump and new policy changes could have
major ramifications for how Facebook handles rule-breaking world leaders and
officials on its services. It said that public figures who violate its rules by
inciting or celebrating ongoing violence or civil unrest could be restricted
for periods ranging from one month to two years.
Social media companies have faced calls from some rights
groups and activists to be more consistent in their approach to other leaders
who have violated or pushed their rules. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and lawmakers in India's ruling
party have drawn scrutiny.
Facebook also gave some transparency into its standard
system on how many "strikes" users can receive before suspensions,
which normally last up to 30 days.
The Trump case has been seen as a test for how the company
responded to the ruling and recommendations of its recently-established
oversight board.
The board also recommended Facebook review its role in the
election fraud conspiracy that led to the January 6 siege, which Facebook said
it would partially implement through its partnership with academics studying the
role it played in the 2020 US elections. Facebook said it was implementing 15
of the 19 board recommendations.
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