Meta removes special restrictions for Trump's account ahead of 2024 elections

Meta announced former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will no longer be subject to heightened suspension penalties, according to an updated blog post on Friday. The company says it made the decision to ensure all Presidential nominees were on equal footing on their platform ahead of the 2024 Presidential election.

When Meta reinstated Trump’s social media profiles in January 2023, the company subjected him to stricter penalties than other users. Under the heightened penalties, the former President could have been banned for up to two years for violating Meta’s community standards. Now, the company says Trump will be held to the same penalties as any other Facebook or Instagram user.

Under those rules for normal users, breaking Facebook’s Community Standards will lead to a warning. After two strikes, users can be banned from specific posting features for limited amounts of time. Only after seven violations are users banned from posting for an entire day, and 10 strikes to receive a month long ban

“In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis,” said Meta in a blog post.

Meta originally banned Trump following the January 6 insurrection in 2021, back when Facebook was Trump’s favorite way to communicate with his supporters online. At the time, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said “the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” before banning Trump indefinitely. These days, Trump regularly posts on Facebook for his 34 million followers, but he’s more active on his own social media platform, Truth Social.

The company is rolling back its harsh penalties against the former President just before the 2024 Republican National Convention. However, Meta says these heightened suspension penalties were a response to extreme circumstances, and were never deployed against Trump.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump posted a threatening statement against Mark Zuckerberg on Truth Social. The former President said he would put “election fraudsters” in prison and called the CEO of Meta out by his latest nickname, “Zuckerbucks.” Trump warned Zuckerberg to “be careful.”