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Facebook suspends Former President Donald Trump for two years


(AP) — Facebook said it will suspend former President Donald Trump’s accounts for two years following its finding that he stoked violence ahead of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection.

“At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded. We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, wrote in a blog post Friday.

Facebook also plans to end a contentious policy championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that automatically exempted politicians from rules that banned hate speech and abuse. The company has said it has never applied this policy to Trump.

The social media giant said on Friday that while it will still apply this “newsworthiness” exemption to certain posts it deems to be in the public interest even if they violate Facebook rules, it will no longer treat material posted by politicians any differently from that posted by anyone else. In addition, Facebook said it will make public whenever it does apply the exemption to a post.

The announcements are in response to recommendations from the company’s quasi-independent oversight board. Last month that panel upheld a decision by Facebook to keep former Trump indefinitely suspended but said the company could not merely suspend him “indefinitely” and gave it six months to decide what to do with his accounts.

Facebook has had a general “newsworthiness exemption” since 2016. But it garnered attention in 2019 when Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs and communications, announced that speech from politicians will be treated as “newsworthy content that should, as a general rule, be seen and heard.”

The newsworthiness exemption, he explained in a blog post at the time, meant that if “someone makes a statement or shares a post which breaks our community standards we will still allow it on our platform if we believe the public interest in seeing it outweighs the risk of harm.”

Shannon Longworth:

WE’RE SEEING A NEW RULING IN THE TRUMP FACEBOOK SAGA.
HEY EVERYONE, I’M SHANNON LONGWORTH WITH STRAIGHT ARROW NEWS.

FACEBOOK SAYS THEY’RE SUSPENDING THE FORMER PRESIDENT’S ACCOUNT UNTIL JANUARY 20-23. HIS INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT, TOO.

WHY?

THE COMPANY’S CITING “PUBLIC SAFETY” — SAYING THE FORMER PRESIDENT STOKED VIOLENCE LEADING UP TO THE ATTACK ON THE CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6TH.IN A STATEMENT — TRUMP CALLED THE DECISION AN “INSULT” — SAYING FACEBOOK QUOTE “SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO GET AWAY WITH THIS CENSORING AND SILENCING.”

THIS COMES AS FACEBOOK *ALSO* CHANGED ITS POLICY FOR POLITICAL SPEECH.
IT’S A LITTLE COMPLICATED — BUT LET ME EXPLAIN.

BASICALLY — SINCE THE 20-16 ELECTION — FACEBOOK HAS BEEN WEIGHING NEWSWORTHINESS AGAINST ABILITY TO CAUSE HARM WHEN EVALUATING POLITICAL SPEECH.
NOW — FACEBOOK WILL FOCUS ON ONLY THAT SECOND PART: HARM.
BUT THE EXCEPTION FOR NEWSWORTHINESS ISN’T GOING AWAY ENTIRELY.
IT’S JUST THAT — WHEN THERE IS AN EXCEPTION — FACEBOOK WILL ANNOUNCE IT PUBLICLY.

FOR MORE UPDATES THROUGHOUT THE DAY — KEEP IT RIGHT HERE ON STRAIGHT ARROW NEWS DOT COM.