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In the scheme of things, this is not a major shift specifically in social platform policies or in the broader approach to handling inflammatory or inflammatory use by world leaders. As far as symbolic gestures go, it’s important, and at least it can have a big impact on U.S. politics.
Today, Meta announced that former U.S. President Donald Trump was allowed to return to Facebook and Instagram after both apps were banned for postings before and after the January 6, 2021 incident at the Capitol. announced that
As meta explained:
“Two years ago we took action in an extreme and highly unusual situation. Then-President Donald Trump, who praised those involved in the violence at the Capitol on January 6, has indefinitely suspended his Facebook and his Instagram accounts., 2021 years. It then referred the decision to the Oversight Board. Oversight Boards are professional bodies established to provide independent checks and balances on our decision-making.”
In response, the oversight board has asked Meta to implement more structured parameters for how such decisions are made and how long the resulting outage will last. . On this basis, Meta announced his two-year end date for the suspension, and a review will be conducted to assess the risks of reopening at that stage. As a result, Meta made the decision to allow Trump back into the app.
Trump’s team has reportedly been pushing for it in recent weeks.
With the 2024 presidential election in focus, Trump’s legal team sent a letter to Meta last week demanding that Trump be allowed back on the platform to share his political voice equally. Whether or not that influenced Meta’s decision is unknown, but now the gates have been opened again. This will allow Trump and his company to reach millions of US voters through his Facebook page and paid ads.
itself is important. But, as I said earlier, this process would allow Meta to establish clearer guidelines for dealing with similar situations in the future, and what kinds of penalties to implement as a result of such actions. It is not yet clear what to do.
Meta’s Board of Supervisors called out this exact detail in response to Meta’s announcement.
“The Board welcomes Meta’s implementation of the Crisis Policy Protocol following the Board’s recommendations to improve Meta’s policy response to crises and to conduct an assessment of the current security environment. However, the Board has provided Meta with additional details of its assessment to enable the Board to review the implementation of the Board’s decisions and recommendations in this case, and has provided the various Define the severity of the violation and ask for clarification. How the Policy on Public Violations in the Context of Civil Unrest Relates to the Crisis Policy Protocol. ”
As noted by the Board, Meta has updated its approach to such situations. Outlining new protocols for dealing with celebrity posts in times of civil unrest, Trump specifically said Meta. Currently, we are also facing “strengthening penalties for repeat offenses.”
However, the parameters for that decision regarding what constitutes public risk are not yet entirely clear. These decisions are in the hands of meta-administrators, and in some cases may be considered a form of political censorship.
And ideally, that’s not what Meta wants.
“AhAs a general rule, especially in the context of elections in democratic societies like the United States, we do not want to get in the way of open, public and democratic discussion on Meta’s platform. Citizens need to be able to hear what politicians are saying (good, bad, ugly) so they can make informed choices at the ballot box. But that doesn’t mean there are no limits to what people can say on our platform. If so), we will act.”
Meta also states that its “default” is to allow people to speak even if what they have to say is “offensive or factually wrong.”
Ideally, Meta would like such decisions to be made by an overarching regulatory body overseeing all online platforms, but the ways in which such a process could be abused and It’s a tough proposition given that different regions have different approaches to such processes. It may not take shape.
As such, meta has to implement its own rules for what constitutes potential harm in this context, and it doesn’t always get it right.
But in reality, there is no other option, and such cases can only be determined when the meta occurs.
So will Trump return to Facebook?
Trump’s Twitter account, which was also suspended, was reactivated by Elon Musk in November, but he has yet to tweet. But this is in part due to Trump’s stake in his Truth Social and his commitment to making that alternative platform work.
Trump Media & Technology Group Trump’s own social media app, Truth Social, put more than $1 billion into it, is funded by various top Trump supporters and advocates.The key caveat to that plan is what Trump promised post the truth, even if his other social accounts were revived. There are ways Trump can avoid violating this, for example, by posting on his Twitter and Facebook hours after first posting on Truth, but basically, Trump doesn’t want his Truth Social I am at least somewhat adamant about making it my focus.
But that doesn’t give you the reach and resonance that Facebook has.
Trump has more than 34 million followers on Facebook, and Facebook ads have been a key part of his campaign efforts to date. In fact, Trump’s team spent more than $20 million on his Facebook ads in 2019 alone. Tweets have become his primary weapon of communication with his audience, but Facebook is also an important platform for promoting his agenda.
So Trump’s team must already have a strategy for the next Facebook ad push now that it’s cleared to return to the app.
is that a good thing?
So, as Meta points out, people should be able to judge for themselves, but then again, the manipulative and targeted approach to Facebook ads that Trump’s team has taken in the past has been criticized in this regard. raises even more questions.
But that’s a whole other discussion, and basically, based on the facts of the case, it makes sense for Meta to reinstate Trump’s account and put him back on the app.
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