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      Trump’s Facebook and Instagram ban to be lifted, Meta announces

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      Trump’s Facebook and Instagram ban to be lifted, Meta announcesEx-president to be allowed back ‘in coming weeks … with new guardrails in place’ after ban that followed January 6 attack In a highly anticipated decision, Meta has said it will allow Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram following a two-year ban from the platforms over his online behavior during the 6 January insurrection.Meta will allow Trump to return “in coming weeks” but “with new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses”, Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg wrote in a blogpost explaining the decision.Two more papers found in Trump’s storage last year were marked secretRead more“Like any other Facebook or Instagram user, Mr Trump is subject to our community standards,” Clegg wrote.“In the event that Mr Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation.”Trump was removed from Meta platforms following the Capitol riots on 6 January 2021, during which he posted unsubstantiated claims that the election had been stolen, praised increasingly violent protestors and condemned former vice-president Mike Pence even as the mob threatened his life.Clegg said the suspension was “an extraordinary decision taken in extraordinary circumstances” and that Meta has weighed “whether there remain such extraordinary circumstances that extending the suspension beyond the original two-year period is justified”.Ultimately, the company has decided that its platforms should be available for “open, public and democratic debate” and that users “should be able to hear from a former President of the United States, and a declared candidate for that office again”, he wrote.“The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying – the good, the bad and the ugly – so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box,” he said.As a general rule, we don’t want to get in the way of open debate on our platforms, esp in context of democratic elections. People should be able to hear what politicians are saying – good, bad & ugly – to make informed choices at the ballot box. 1/4— Nick Clegg (@nickclegg) January 25, 2023
      While it is unclear if the former president will begin posting again on the platform, his campaign indicated he had a desire to return in a letter sent to Meta in January.“We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse,” the letter said.Safety concerns and a politicized debateThe move is likely to influence how other social media companies will handle the thorny balance of free speech and content moderation when it comes to world leaders and other newsworthy individuals, a debate made all the more urgent by Trump’s run for the US presidency once again.Online safety advocates have warned that Trump’s return will result in an increase of misinformation and real-life violence. Since being removed from Meta-owned platforms, the former president has continued to promote baseless conspiracy theories elsewhere, predominantly on his own network, Truth Social.While widely expected, it still drew sharp rebukes from civil rights advocates. “Facebook has policies but they under-enforce them,” said Laura Murphy, an attorney who led a two-year long audit of Facebook concluding in 2020. “I worry about Facebook’s capacity to understand the real world harm that Trump poses: Facebook has been too slow to act.”The Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Free Press and other groups also expressed concern on Wednesday over Facebook’s ability to prevent any future attacks on the democratic process, with Trump still repeating his false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.“With the mass murders in Colorado or in Buffalo, you can see there is already a cauldron of extremism that is only intensified if Trump weighs in,” said Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of media watchdog Media Matters for America. “When Trump is given a platform, it ratchets up the temperature on a landscape that is already simmering – one that will put us on a path to increased violence.”After the 6 January riots, the former president was also banned from Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube. Some of those platforms have already allowed Trump to return. Twitter’s ban, while initially permanent, was later overruled by its new chief executive Elon Musk. YouTube has not shared a timeline on a decision to allow Trump to return. Trump remains banned from Snapchat. Meta, however, dragged out its ultimate decision. In 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained in a post Trump had been barred from the platforms for encouraging violence and that he would remain suspended until a peaceful transition of power could take place.While Zuckerberg did not initially offer a timeline on the ban, the company punted its decision about whether to remove him permanently to its oversight board: a group of appointed academics and former politicians meant to operate independently of Facebook’s corporate leadership. That group ruled in May 2021 that the penalties should not be “indeterminate”, but kicked the final ruling on Trump’s accounts back to Meta, suggesting it decide in six months – two years after the riots.The deadline was initially slated for 7 January, and reports from inside Meta suggested the company was intensely debating the decision. Clegg wrote in a 2021 blog post that Trump’s accounts would need to be strictly monitored in the event of his return.How the ‘guardrails’ could workAnnouncing the decision on Wednesday, Clegg said Meta’s “guardrails” would include taking action against content that does not directly violate their community standards but “contributes to the sort of risk that materialized on January 6th, such as content that delegitimizes an upcoming election or is related to QAnon”.Meta “may limit the distribution of such posts, and for repeated instances, may temporarily restrict access to our advertising tools”, Clegg said, or “remove the re-share button” from posts.Trump pleads with Meta to restore Facebook accountRead moreTrump responded to the news with a short statement on Truth Social, reposted by others on Twitter, saying that “such a thing should never happen again to a sitting president” but did not indicate if or when he would return to the platform.It remains to be seen if he will actually begin posting again on the platforms where his accounts have been reinstated. While he initially suggested he would be “staying on Truth [Social]”, his own social media platform, recent reports said he was eager to return to Facebook, formally appealing Meta to reinstate his accounts. But weeks after returning to Twitter, Trump had yet to tweet again. Some have suggested the silence has been due to an exclusivity agreement he has with Truth Social.A report from Rolling Stone said Trump planned to begin tweeting again when the agreement, which requires him to post all news to the app six hours in advance of any other platform, expires in June. Trump has a far broader reach on mainstream social platforms compared to Truth Social, where he has just 5 million followers.Many online safety advocates have warned Trump’s return would be toxic, and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill urged Meta in a December letter to uphold the ban.Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat who previously chaired the House intelligence committee, criticized the decision to reinstate him.“Trump incited an insurrection,” Schiff wrote on Twitter. “Giving him back access to a social media platform to spread his lies and demagoguery is dangerous.”Trump’s account has remained online even after his ban, but he had been unable to publish new posts. Civil rights groups say that regardless of the former president’s future actions the Meta decision marks a dangerous precedent. “Whether he uses the platforms or not, a reinstatement by Meta sends a message that there are no real consequences even for inciting insurrection and a coup on their channels,” said a group of scholars, advocates and activists calling itself the Real Facebook Oversight Board in a statement. “Someone who has violated their terms of service repeatedly, spread disinformation on their platforms and fomented violence would be welcomed back.”Reuters contributed reportingTopicsDonald TrumpMetaFacebookInstagramUS politicsSocial networkingUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Trump pleads with Meta to restore Facebook account

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      Trump pleads with Meta to restore Facebook accountFormer president’s lawyers petition company to allow access following ban from platform in wake of 2021 Capitol attack Donald Trump has petitioned Meta to restore his access to Facebook, as he reportedly looks to shift his 2024 presidential campaign into a higher gear.The former president was banned from Facebook more than two years ago, after his followers attacked the US Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.In a letter to Meta obtained by NBC News on Wednesday, Trump advisers argued that the ban “dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse” and should be rescinded.Meta said it would “announce a decision in the coming weeks”.Free the nipple: Facebook and Instagram told to overhaul ban on bare breastsRead moreFacebook and Twitter banned Trump a day after the January 6 attack, which has been linked to nine deaths including suicides among law enforcement.Trump used his Twitter account to encourage supporters to gather near the Capitol. In a speech before the attack, he urged supporters to “fight like hell”. He then used Twitter to criticize his vice-president, Mike Pence, for not stopping certification while the attack was in progress.A congressional committee recommended that Trump be criminally charged in connection with the attack, the fate of hundreds of his supporters.Twitter lifted its ban on Trump after Elon Musk bought the platform last year. But Trump has not tweeted since, choosing to remain on his own rival social media service, Truth Social.NBC quoted an anonymous Republican who said Trump had been bragging about eventually returning to Twitter and predicted the ex-president would do so.Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Twitter have 34 million and nearly 88 million followers respectively. On Truth Social, he has fewer than 5 million followers.Trump used Twitter and Facebook extensively when he ran for the presidency in 2016 and throughout his time in office.Impeached over the Capitol attack but acquitted, Trump announced his 2024 run in mid-November. In doing so he sought to take credit for Republicans winning back the US House in the midterm elections, though their majority was much narrower than expected and many candidates Trump endorsed suffered high-profile defeats.TopicsDonald TrumpMetaFacebookUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Facebook owner reportedly paid Republican firm to push message TikTok is ‘the real threat’

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      Facebook owner reportedly paid Republican firm to push message TikTok is ‘the real threat’Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, solicited campaign accusing TikTok of being a danger to American children Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms, is reportedly paying a notable GOP consulting firm to create public distrust around TikTok.The campaign, launched by Republican strategy firm Targeted Victory, placed op-eds and letters to the editor in various publications, accusing TikTok of being a danger to American children, along with other disparaging accusations.The firm wanted to “get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat especially as a foreign owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using,” wrote a director for the firm in a February email, part of a trove of emails revealed by the Washington Post.“Dream would be to get stories with headlines like ‘From dances to danger: how TikTok has become the most harmful social media space for kids,’” another staffer wrote.Campaign operatives promoted stories to local media, including some unsubstantiated claims, that tied TikTok to supposedly dangerous trends popular among teenagers – despite those trends originating on Facebook.Such trends included the viral 2021 “devious lick” trend, where students vandalized school property. Targeted Victory pushed stories on “devious lick” to local publications in Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Washington DC. But the trend originally spread on Facebook, according to an investigation by Anna Foley with the podcast Reply All.Campaign workers also used anti-TikTok messages to deflect from criticisms that Meta had received for its privacy and antitrust policies.“Bonus point if we can fit this into a broader message that the current bills/proposals aren’t where [state attorneys general] or members of Congress should be focused,” wrote a Targeted Victory staffer.In a comment to the Post, a TikTok representative said that the company was “deeply concerned” about “the stoking of local media reports on alleged trends that have not been found on the platform”.A Meta representative, Andy Stone, defended the campaign to the Washington Post, saying: “We believe all platforms, including TikTok, should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success.”TopicsTikTokRepublicansFacebookMetaSocial networkingUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and Trump ally, to step down from Meta board

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      Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and Trump ally, to step down from Meta boardThiel, a major donor to the Republican party, was seen by critics as part of the reason why Facebook did not censor Trump Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, is stepping down from the board of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, after 17 years.Finally, Facebook can say it’s not the most toxic social network | Marina HydeRead moreThiel, Facebook’s longest-serving board member and a major donor to the Republican party, plans to focus on backing Donald Trump’s allies in the November midterm elections, according to the New York Times. He recently donated $10m each to the Senate campaigns of Blake Masters, who is running for a seat in Arizona, and JD Vance, who is running in Ohio. Masters is the chief operating officer of Thiel’s family office and Vance used to work at one of Thiel’s venture funds.Thiel has long been a controversial figure on Facebook’s 10-person board, particularly as one of a few major tech figures who vocally supported Trump. Thiel, who donated millions of dollars to Trump’s campaign and served on the ex-president’s transition team, was seen by critics as a part of the reason Facebook did not take down Trump’s posts that violated its community standards. Thiel is a close confidant of Zuckerberg’s. He accompanied him to a private dinner with Trump in 2019 and has successfully advocated he withstand pressure to take political speech and ads off the platform.But recently he has publicly criticized Facebook’s content moderation decisions, saying he’d “take QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories any day over a Ministry of Truth”.Thiel joined Facebook’s board in 2005, a year after the company was founded and seven years before its made its debut on Wall Street. The company said on Monday that he would stay on until Meta’s next shareholder meeting later this year, where he would not stand for re-election.“Peter has been a valuable member of our board and I’m deeply grateful for everything he’s done for our company,” said Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, in a statement. “Peter is truly an original thinker who you can bring your hardest problems and get unique suggestions.”In a statement on Monday, Thiel called Zuckerberg “one of the great entrepreneurs of our time” and praised his “intelligence, energy and conscientiousness”.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting.TopicsFacebookMetaSocial networkingPeter ThielRepublicansDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Breeding grounds for radicalization’: Capitol attack panel signals loss of patience with big tech

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      ‘Breeding grounds for radicalization’: Capitol attack panel signals loss of patience with big techSubpoenas are an escalation in the committee’s efforts for answers as companies ignored information requests The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol has ordered several social media firms to hand over data relating to the attack, asignificant step toward transparency that could have broader privacy implications.Facebook whistleblower to claim company contributed to Capitol attackRead moreThe committee on Thursday subpoenaed Twitter, Meta, Alphabet and Reddit for private messages exchanged on the platforms about the attack aas well as information regarding moderation policies that allowed communities to remain online even as they incited violence in early 2021.Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, said the committee is seeking to answer two key questions: how the spread of misinformation contributed to the violent attack, and what steps social media companies took to prevent their platforms from “being breeding grounds for radicalizing people to violence”.The subpoenas mark an escalation in the committee’s efforts to get answers from the tech companies. Thompson added in his letter that the subpoenas came after “months of engagement” with the firms and that the four companies have so far ignored requests for information.“We cannot allow our important work to be delayed any further,” he said.The panel in August asked 15 tech companies, including the four subpoenaed on Thursday as well as TikTok, Snapchat, Parler and 4chan, for records related to the riot.In letters sent this week the tech firms, Thompson lamented their lack of response. In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Thompson said that “despite repeated and specific requests for documents” related to Facebook’s practices on election misinformation and violent content, the committee had still not received these materials.Following the January 6 attack, social media platforms have been scrutinized for amplifying calls to violence, spreading misinformation and serving as an organizing tool for the rioters.Last March, lawmakers grilled the CEOs of Google, Twitter and Facebook about the platforms’ role in the Capitol riot. And in the months since, the major platforms have all announced initiatives to curb the spread of misinformation through their products.But still, much about the content moderation policies of major tech firms remains black box, with executives slow to reveal details of how misinformation and hate speech is moderated and how many resources are dedicated to mitigating such issues. Now, increased transparency could come by means of subpoena.For lawmakers, the problem came even more acutely into focus with papers leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen in October 2021, which showed how Facebook failed to enforce policies that would rein in hate speech because they were detrimental to its bottom line. Speaking to Congress, Haugen called for more transparency from Facebook and other companies, including an independent oversight board.In a letter to Zuckerberg, the select committee cited revelations from Haugen, requesting access to the company’s internal analyses of the spread of misinformation and calls to violence relating to the 2020 election.In particular, the committee requested more information on the “Stop the Steal” movement and how it was regulated. A “Stop the Steal” Facebook group amassed hundreds of thousands of members and was used to coordinate some of the actions on January 6. While Facebook eventually took it down, other related pages stayed online, said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.“It is absolutely crucial to understand the decision making process that led to them to leave those pages online – how they executed enforcement of their policies against violence, encouraging violence, intimidation, extremism and hate.”Similarly, Reddit has been requested to provide information on its community r/The_Donald, which was used to plan the January 6 action before it was banned weeks later on 27 January.Lawmakers were also seeking materials from Alphabet, the parent company of YouTube, because the video platform hosted significant communications by key players in the Capitol attack, including Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon and rioters livestreaming their movements on January 6.Activists say the need to hold companies accountable for how their policies contributed to the Capitol riots should be held in balance with civil rights and privacy protections.The subpoenas may bring up privacy concerns, said Evan Greer, deputy director of digital rights group Fight for the Future. “Forcing companies to hand over private messages of its users could have major privacy implications,” Greer said.“It’s essential to remember that government surveillance and demands for data from private companies are primarily weaponized against marginalized communities,” they said. “The white supremacists who stormed the Capitol deserve to be held accountable, but we should never cheer on expansions of surveillance or government overreach.”Twitter, Meta, Alphabet and Reddit did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. 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