Democrats have asked Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to lift its ban against former President Donald Trump.
What’s the background?
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Jan. 6, that Trump was “indefinitely” removed from Instagram and Facebook.
Zuckerberg posted on Facebook explaining his decision and accused Trump of using “our platform to incite violence against a democratically elected Government.”
Later, the Meta oversight board upheld Trump’s ban and extended it for two more years after its original suspension. It cannot be overturned before January 7, 2023.
What are the Democrats saying to you?
The Democrats were Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Reps. Adam Schiff and Andre Carson (Ind.). ), and Kathy Castor, (Fla.) claimed that Meta’s only chance of maintaining credibility is by complying with their demand for Trump to be banned.
“For Meta credibly to maintain an election integrity policy, you must ensure that your company does not ban former president Trump from its platform,” the lawmakers wrote to Nick Clegg (president of global affairs at Meta).
Dave Rubin’s content is free from big tech censorship. The Rubin Report is now available.
The Democrats are worried that Trump might be allowed to return to Facebook after Trump’s original ban expires next month. They argued that Trump shouldn’t be allowed back on Facebook because of his rhetoric which is opposed by the Democrats.
They claimed that “Two-years later, we can clearly see that Trump is still spreading The Big Lie” and undermining our democracy.” “Indeed, Trump has supported pardoning those involved in the attack on police on January 6th, if he ever gets the chance.”
The Democrats cited Trump’s posts to his social network, Truth Social, as evidence. The Democrats didn’t cite these posts directly, but referred to a Rolling Stone article. He should also be banned from Facebook, they claimed, because he had “incited violence on Truth Social in many cases.”
However, the Democrats did not mention any instances of Trump-instigated violence.
What did Meta do?
The Hill reported that the technology giant responded by repeating previous comments regarding Trump’s accounts.
Clegg stated in September that he would seriously examine the situation by January 7th and suggested that it could lead to Trump’s accounts being reopened.
“We have been open. Clegg stated that the temporary suspension will last for two years, and be effective until January 1, next year. “We’ll examine all signals that we should be looking at, and what we believe may or not impact the real world harm risks.”