Meta will restore Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts

Meta said the suspensions on Donald Trump's accounts would be lifted "in the coming weeks", with measures in place to discourage repeat offenses. Twitter reinstated Mr. Trump last year.

Just over two years after Donald J. Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts were suspended, Meta, the owner of the platforms, said on Wednesday that he would restore the former president's access to social media services.

Mr. Trump, who had the most followed account on Facebook when he was banned, will "in the coming weeks" regain access to his accounts which collectively had hundreds of millions of followers, Meta said. In November, Mr Trump's account was also reinstated on Twitter, which had banned him since January 2021, collectively giving the former president more than a megaphone as he campaigned for the White House in 2024.

Meta suspended Mr. Trump from its platforms on January 7, 2021, the day after hundreds stormed the Capitol on his behalf, claiming that his messages might incite further violence. Mr. Trump's accounts on other mainstream social media services, including YouTube and Twitter, were also deleted that week.

But Meta, what critics have accused of censoring Mr. Trump and other conservative voices, said Wednesday she decided to roll back the bans because she determined the risk to public safety had 'reduced enough' since January 2021 The company added that it would add guardrails to "deter repeat offenders" in the future.

"The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying - the good, the bad and the ugly - so he can make informed choices at the ballot box," said Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta. "But that doesn't mean there isn't no limits to what people can say on our platform."

In a post on the s right-wing Truth Social, Mr. Trump said a "deplatform" should "never again happen to a sitting president, or anyone else who doesn't deserve retaliation!"

Meta has been at the center of a debate over freedom of expression online and who should have the power to decide what can be posted and what should be deleted. The banning of Mr. Trump's accounts was a blatant display of the influence of social media platforms and the fact that they have too much control and influence over public discourse online.

The upcoming reinstatement of Mr. Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts was immediately criticized by Democratic lawmakers and disinformation experts, who said the move would allow the former president to spread controversial and inflammatory posts.

“The Capitol community is still picking up the pieces of the Jan. 6 insurrection that Trump sparked, and now he's coming back to virtual crime scene,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Deputy Chief Whip and Democrat of Illinois, said in an emailed statement.

But Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Meta's move was "the right move" because Mr. Trump is a cipher political leader and the public is interested in hearing him speak. "While the government can't force platforms to air certain speeches, that doesn't mean the biggest platforms should engage in political censorship," Romero said.

It's unclear if Mr. Trump, who said in November he was seeking the White House again in 2024, will become active again on Facebook and Instagram. He launched Truth Social, in which he has a financial participation...