Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts restored after ban in wake of January 6 riot
9 February 2023, 20:03 | Updated: 10 February 2023, 01:47
Ex-US President Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts have been restored after he was banned from the platforms in the wake of the deadly January 6 Capitol riots.
Users of the social platforms can once again see the property mogul-turned-politican's pages, with his last post on Facebook made on 6 January 2021.
The then-president was suspended from the platforms the day after, following a deadly insurrection during which hundreds of his supporters stormed the US Capitol.
Mr Trump, 76, was also banned from Twitter.
Since his ban, he has been using his own, much smaller site, Truth Social.
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It comes after Meta, the parent company for Facebook and Instagram announced it would reinstate the his accounts on both platforms following a two-year suspension.
The tech giant said in a blog post last month that it would be adding "new guardrails" to ensure that there are no "repeat offenders" who violate its rules.
"In the event that Mr Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation," it said.
Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, said the former President was free to use Facebook and Instagram again "if he wishes to", but added that "guardrails" were in place to "ensure he plays by the rules".
Mr Clegg added: "We're trying to strike a balance between keeping people safe on our platform, making sure that our services are not used to threaten real would harm, but at the same time we think the American people should hear from those who want to lead them, and we don't want to stand in the way of that."
In response to Meta's decision in January, Mr Trump said: "FACEBOOK, which has lost billions of dollars in value since "deplatforming" your favourite president, me, has just announced that they are reinstating my account.
"Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting president, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!"
Mr Trump's Twitter account was reactivated in November last year following Elon Musk's $44bn takeover of the social media platform.
The tech entrepreneur, who called the ban on the politician's account a "mistake", launched a poll on the site asking users to vote on whether the former US commander-in-chief should be allowed to return.
The poll came out in favour of Mr Trump getting his account back, and it was subsequently restored.
But Mr Trump, who has over 80million followers on the platform, hasn't yet used the the account and previously said that he didn't see: "any reason for it [returning]."
