Facebook on Friday announced it will suspend former President Donald Trump for two years in connection with his comments during and after the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building.
The company clarified it will only reinstate Trump to Facebook and Instagram "if the risk to public safety has receded" and "will evaluate external factors" in doing so. Last month, Facebook’s Oversight Board upheld its suspension of the former president but also criticized the platform’s "open-ended" approach to suspensions and discipline.
The timeline is the first from Facebook since it initially banned Trump.
Trump released a statement a short time later on the announcement: "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!"
As previously reported by The Verge, Facebook announced new enforcement protocols for "exceptional cases such as this," outlined in an escalating suspension model for public figures.
"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," the company said in a blog post.
Trump will be subject to what the company said "will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions" if he commits further infractions, including permanent removal of his pages and accounts.
"In establishing the two-year sanction for severe violations, we considered the need for it to be long enough to allow a safe period of time after the acts of incitement, to be significant enough to be a deterrent to Mr. Trump and others from committing such severe violations in future, and to be proportionate to the gravity of the violation itself," the company added.
The two-year suspension is effective from Jan. 7, the date of the initial discipline a day after the pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Related
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow Audacy
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram