Facebook, Instagram to reinstate Donald Trump. Thumbs down.
MSNBCJan 26, 2023
Meta Platforms Inc. on Thursday restored former Pres. Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, which had been suspended since the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the US Capitol. Meta had announced its plan to restore Trump last month.
In a blog post last month, Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, said the company has put “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses," adding "the public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying" in order to make "informed choices."
The reinstatement of Trump's accounts on Facebook and Instagram — key vehicles for political outreach and fundraising — could change the trajectory of the 2024 presidential election, with Trump once again repeating debunked election fraud claims. Allowing the former president, who allegedly incited an insurrection, to post divisive and inflammatory narratives sets a dangerous precedent.
Meta has been disproportionately silencing conservative voices all the way up to the former president. Instead of making substantial efforts to stop the spread of dangerous misinformation in real-time, it dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse. Censorship by Big Tech should have been stopped long ago. Hopefully, political voices will not be silenced anymore, and social media platforms will resist inappropriately interfering in the American political and election process.
Regardless of political ideologies, banning political figures on social media platforms is a slippery slope. Given the importance of protecting free speech, social media platforms must not engage in political censorship. If they do, they must refrain from imposing penalties on an ad-hoc or political basis. This is an issue that crosses party lines.