“Ongoing Risk of Violence”
Much like other platforms including Snapchat, YouTube and a ‘permanent’ ban from Twitter (which was eventually reversed by Musk), Meta took the decision to suspend Trump’s Facebook and Instagram handles following the January 6th Capitol riots.
The suspension was later upheld by Facebook’s Oversight Board, which said that the actions were justified due to the “the seriousness of the violations and the ongoing risk of violence”.
As well as prompting Trump to launch his own social media platform Truth Social, he also filed class-actions lawsuits against Meta, Twitter and YouTube as the lead plaintiff, claiming that his constitutional right to freedom of speech had been violated.
Meta ended Trump’s Facebook and Instagram suspensions in January 2023, after determining that the risk had “sufficiently receded”.
