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The Facebook ban on former President Donald Trump will last at least two years, the platform announced Friday.
The two-year ban, which came after the Facebook Oversight Board ruled that Trump would remain banned after he was initially suspended following the riot at the U.S. Capitol, was announced in a statement by Facebook VP Nick Clegg, a former member of Parliament in the United Kingdom.
Clegg wrote:
Last month, the Oversight Board upheld Facebook’s suspension of former US President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts following his praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol on January 6. But in doing so, the board criticized the open-ended nature of the suspension, stating that “it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension.” The board instructed us to review the decision and respond in a way that is clear and proportionate, and made a number of recommendations on how to improve our policies and processes.We are today announcing new enforcement protocols to be applied in exceptional cases such
as this, and we are confirming the time-bound penalty consistent with those protocols which we are applying to Mr. Trump’s accounts. 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. We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7 this year.
The Facebook statement also delves into the platform’s moderation parameters for public figures. Read it here.
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