Facebook will announce decision to return Trump to social network
2023.01.12 02:56
Facebook will announce decision to return Trump to social network
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is getting ready to make one of the most important decisions the company has ever made. This historic move will set a precedent for online speech and could change how the US presidential election in 2024 goes.
According to a person familiar with the discussions, Meta’s specially formed internal working group is debating whether to allow former President Donald Trump to rejoin Facebook and Instagram. Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, stated on Wednesday that the decision will be made public in the coming weeks.
Following the attack on January 6, Trump was banned from Facebook and other social media platforms. Many Capitol Hill lawmakers and tech executives believed Trump could use its platforms to incite more violence, so they thought the bans were necessary.
Free speech advocates and other world leaders, on the other hand, were alarmed by the unilateral decision made by companies like Facebook and Twitter because they were concerned about the precedent it might set. The bans were referred to as “problematic” by the office of then-German chancellor Angela Merkel, and opposition leader Alexei Navalny referred to them as “an act of censorship.”
Meta is contemplating returning Trump’s megaphone now, two years later. on Instagram and Facebook. Although Meta’s intention to reevaluate the decision predates Twitter’s reversal, the debate takes place less than two months after Twitter restored Trump’s account.
Facebook initially stated that its Trump ban would be permanent. The company, on the other hand, made the announcement in June 2021 that the ban imposed by Trump would be reevaluated in January 2023, two years after the initial decision.
Last month, Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill wrote a letter to Meta urging the company to keep Trump off its platforms. In the letter, they said that Trump continues to attack American democracy by telling lies about the 2020 election. Republicans, supporters of free speech, and others contend that maintaining the ban is an excessive form of censorship and could disadvantage Trump as a 2024 candidate.
Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director, admits, “It’s a judgment call.” Recognizing that both of these choices will result in significant consequences is crucial. And it would be foolish to believe that either choice is simple,” she stated.
Harbath, who previously worked in Republican politics, stated that she has struggled with the issue, despite her belief that Facebook’s decision to suspend Trump in January 2021 was the right one.
She stated, “In the lead up to that moment, I was still defending keeping him on the platform, because even though some of the things he posted were horrible, I just couldn’t get myself past the point that I thought that people deserve to know what the people that are representing them have to say.”
However, Harbath stated that she is of the opinion that Trump ought to be permitted to return to the platform subject to a stringent set of guidelines outlining the means by which he could be suspended in the event that he violates the company’s policies once more.
She stated, “I don’t think it should take another level event on January 6th in order to do that.”
A plan for how Trump could return to the platform has been published by Harbath, who is currently the CEO of Anchor Change, a tech policy consulting firm.
Silicon Valley executives like Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey have long struggled with the dilemma Harbath outlines: allowing politicians to remain on social platforms even if they are breaking the platforms’ rules and the belief that voters should be able to see the good, bad, and ugly in politicians so they can be held accountable.
Others, on the other hand, disagree, thinking that Trump’s return to the platform could once more set the stage for a dangerous event.
Crystal Patterson, a former colleague of Harbath and the former head of Facebook’s global civic partnerships, stated that Trump should not be permitted to return to the platform. Before joining Facebook, Patterson, who previously worked in Democratic politics, stated that Trump has demonstrated his willingness to use the platform for harm.
She stated, “There has been no shortage of hearing from him.” He hasn’t had any trouble getting his message out or making sure people know how he feels about things because he hasn’t been on Facebook or Twitter.
Despite the fact that Harbath and Patterson’s positions on the possibility of Trump’s return coincide with their political affiliations (Harbath points out that, despite being a Republican, she never voted for Trump), both cited instances in the past where they agreed with decisions made by Facebook that were contrary to what their respective parties might have wanted.
Ex-employees emphasized that Meta’s decision-making process was deliberate and that the company was always mindful of not appearing to aid or hinder one party, even though leaders in both parties would probably argue that they did not succeed.
According to a person who is familiar with the procedure, the company has established an internal working group with leaders from various parts of the organization, including Meta’s policy, communications, and content moderation teams, to assist in making the decision.
Meta stated that it is taking into account things like “risks to public safety” and “imminent harm” in its discussions.
Nico Perrino, an advocate for free speech and executive vice president at the civil liberties organization Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), stated that those parameters are too vague.
Perrino stated, “A policy or prescription that is ripe for abuse is determining who gets to speak or who gets an account on Facebook or any other social media platform based on the mood of the country.” I can’t think of a strict standard that would ensure that this policy is applied fairly to all politicians, not just former President Trump.
According to a person with knowledge of Trump’s operations, the suspension of the former president’s Facebook page, which has more than 34 million followers, hindered his ability to locate new donors, harmed his political movement, and forced him to use his Save America leadership PAC to run advertisements on the platform. However, Trump’s voice cannot be used in any of those ads.
This individual stated, “Without his likeness, the advertising has been less effective.” Trump’s return to the platform “would enable him to communicate with tens of millions of followers once more.” It would enable him to resume fundraising prospecting and reduce overall fundraising expenses.
According to a current Trump adviser, the former president has never used Facebook in the same manner as he did Twitter, which became his primary medium for communicating with his political base as president prior to his removal from the platform following the January 6 attack. Still, this person stated, the Trump campaign would jump at the chance to use his image again in Facebook ads.
The advisor stated, “It is the most important vehicle for fundraising and for reaching a large number of people in the persuadable audience.”
Unlike Twitter, Meta is going through a process of publishing explicit posts and policy documents that clearly outline how it plans to make the high-stakes decision.
Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, reinstated Trump’s account in November after publishing an unscientific poll of the platform’s users. Since his account was reinstated, Trump—once arguably the most influential user on Twitter—has yet to post on the platform.
However, it might not be as straightforward as accepting Musk’s invitation. Truth Social, Trump’s own rival social media platform, was launched in February. Right-wing users initially showed a lot of interest in the platform, but it hasn’t been able to keep that up. Trump, the Truth Social account with the most followers, has fewer than 5 million followers, compared to nearly 90 million on Twitter.
Trump has stated that he is committed to Truth Social despite aides encouraging him to return to Twitter and his desire for a larger megaphone. According to those in Trump’s inner circle, he is bound by an exclusivity agreement with Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), Truth Social’s parent company, which could lead to legal issues if he switches to Twitter, Facebook, or another social media platform.
According to two people with knowledge of the situation, that agreement, which first appeared in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission in May, was new to some of Trump’s senior aides. These aides were left wondering why Trump did not jump at the chance to rejoin Twitter when Musk reinstated his account just before Thanksgiving.
Trump must first post on Truth Social and wait at least six hours before posting the same message to other social media platforms, according to the terms of the agreement. Posts about “political messaging, political fundraising, or get-out-the-vote efforts” are exempt, but it’s unclear who would enforce the agreement and whether they would be willing to do so in the event that Trump violates it.
The ambiguous contract language has been cited as a potential flaw by Trump’s advisers, particularly now that Trump has officially declared his intention to run for president again in 2024. Some of his supporters think that the language could allow him to say that anything he posts counts as “political messaging” while he is running for president.
A person who is close to Trump said, “Trump is going to do what he wants to do in the end.” He will find a way to violate any agreement.
The decision made by Meta may serve as a model for Snapchat and YouTube, two other platforms that suspended Trump following the attack on January 6 as well. Following Trump’s announcement that he would be running for reelection in 2024 and Musk’s return of his Twitter account, those businesses were already beginning to face pressure to reconsider their bans.
Whatever the outcome, Meta’s decision may provide cover for other social media companies to take similar actions.
According to Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, “usually these companies do fly in a flock and whoever makes the first movements, other companies do tend to try to, in succession, follow behind because the initial company takes the biggest media hit and then the rest of them don’t suffer the reputational hit of being the first technology company to make a decision.”
According to NYU law professor and deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights Paul Barrett, “whatever decision Meta comes to… will inevitably be influential.” This is due to the scale and power of Facebook and Instagram. The more explicit and convincing Meta’s explanation for whatever decision is, the more likely it is to influence others. Therefore, it would be beneficial for them to attempt to make a statement that is both clear and helpful.
In a broader sense, the way Meta and other platforms handle politicians and other influential figures in the future may be influenced by its decision regarding Trump and any new policies it articulates to explain the decision. Following Meta’s historic decision to remove Trump, many of the company’s adherents inquired as to why the company had not taken more serious action against Trump’s previous rule violations and how it would apply its thoughts regarding Trump to potential future violations by other world leaders.
Meta has stated in the past that if Trump’s accounts are reinstated, he may once more have them revoked if he violates the rules of the platforms. In 2021, Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, wrote in a blog post, “If Mr. Trump commits further violations in the future, there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered,” including the permanent removal of his pages and accounts.
Clegg suggested at an event in Washington last fall that the rubric Meta could apply to Trump in the future, if his account is restored, would likely depend on whether his actions rekindled the possibility of physical violence. He added that Trump probably would not be suspended for making false claims about the results of the election.
Clegg stated, “It’s not whether you say or do the truth; it’s whether what you say or do incites violence and can be clearly linked to developments in the real world that threaten real world harm.” Truth or fiction are irrelevant.
Now, it will be up for debate as to whether or not that method would be broadly adopted by other leaders.
Donovan stated, “[Trump] is a newsworthy historical figure who has not been convicted of any crime, and if Meta is dedicated to the same kind of free speech values as Twitter, then they would likely let him back on.” The main question is about network incitement—no other technology allows politicians or political operatives to openly incite such fervor as they did on January 6, and the technology hasn’t changed much to stop something like this from happening again.
