Facebook will maintain Donald Trump’s account suspension for two years

Facebook announced on Friday that it will maintain the suspension of Donald Trump’s account for two years. His profile has been suspended since January 7, accused of incitement to violence in the capital of the United States.

“Today, we are confirming the sanction for a limited time, in accordance with the protocols we apply to Mr. Trump’s accounts. Given the seriousness of the circumstances which led to the suspension of your account, We believe that your actions were a serious violation of our rules, which deserve the highest sanction available under the new enforcement protocols. We will suspend your accounts for two years, starting from the date of the initial suspension on January 7 of this year.“, said the social network in a statement.

He then explained that at the end of this period, they will assess “”if the risk to public safety has decreased. We will assess external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assemblies, and other indicators of civil unrest. If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a specified period of time and continue to reassess until this risk has decreased”.

“When the suspension is finally lifted, There will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if Trump commits more violations in the future, up to and including the permanent removal of his pages and accounts.“, He warned.

Facebook also pointed out that, when establishing a two-year sanction for serious violations, it considers “the need for it to be long enough to allow for a period of safety after the inciting acts, significant enough to deter Mr. Trump and others from committing such acts”.

“We are grateful that the Supervisory Board recognized that our initial decision to suspend Trump’s account was correct and necessary., under the exceptional circumstances of the time. But we absolutely accept that we do not have adequate application protocols to respond to such unusual events. Now that we have them we hope that they are applicable only in the rarest cases“, He said.

And followed: “We know that any sanction that we apply, or choose not to apply, will be controversial.. There are a lot of people who think it was inappropriate for a private company like Facebook to suspend an exiting president from its platform, and a lot of others think Trump should have been immediately ousted for life. We know today’s decision will be criticized by many people on both sides of the political divide, but our job is to make a decision in the most proportionate, fair and transparent way possible, in accordance with the instructions given to us by the Supervisory Board ”.

Finally, he specifies: “Of course, this sanction only applies to our services: Mr. Trump is and will remain free to express himself publicly in other ways. Our approach reflects how we try to balance the values ​​of freedom of expression and security in our services, for all users, as enshrined in our community standards. Other social media companies have taken different approaches, either banning Trump permanently from their services or confirming that he will be free to resume using their services when conditions permit. “

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the company, said in January that the suspension had been extended due to the “use of the platform to incite a violent insurgency against a democratically elected government”.

“We believe that the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.Zuckerberg wrote on his personal Facebook account at the time.

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