Former President Donald Trump lashed out at Facebook Friday after the social media giant announced it would suspend his account for at least two years as it enforces new “protocols to be applied in exceptional cases.”
“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,” Trump said in a statement. “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!”
Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will remain suspended until Jan. 7, 2023, and be reactivated “if the risk to public safety has receded,” according to the company’s Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg in a blog post on the corporation’s website.
“We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest,” Clegg wrote. “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.
“When the suspension is eventually lifted, there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if Mr. Trump commits further violations in future, up to and including permanent removal of his pages and accounts.”
Facebook’s new policy comes after an oversight board upheld the suspension of Trump’s account but criticized “indefinite suspension” as a penalty.
