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Donald Trump will be allowed back on to Facebook and Instagram, after Meta announced it would be ending its two-year suspension of his accounts.
The ban will end “in the coming weeks”, the social media giant said.
In a statement, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said the public “should be able to hear what their politicians are saying”.
The then-US president was indefinitely suspended from Facebook and Instagram after the Capitol riots in 2021.
Meta had acted following Mr Trump’s “praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol”, Mr Clegg said.
“The suspension was an extraordinary decision taken in extraordinary circumstances,” he added.
He said a review had now found that Mr Trump’s accounts no longer represented a serious risk to public safety.
But because of Mr Trump’s past “violations”, he would now face heightened penalties for any future offences.
Meta’s Oversight Board – a body it set up to review moderation rulings – said that the decision to reinstate Mr Trump on its platforms “sat with Meta alone – the board did not have a role in the decision”.
The board had previously told Meta that Mr Trump’s suspension needed to be revisited.
It urged Meta to be transparent and to provide additional information about new policies covering public figures so that it could review their implementation.
Truth Social
Republicans have been pressing for Mr Trump to be allowed back on Facebook as he prepares to run for the US presidency again next year.
Mr Trump posted on his own social media company, Truth Social, in response on Wednesday, saying that Facebook had “lost billions” after banning “your favourite president, me”.
“Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting president, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!” he wrote.
