Facebook Bans Donald Trump For At Least Two Years

Facing criticising from an independent oversight board, social media behemoth Facebook has announced that former U.S President Donald Trump will be banned from its platform for two years instead of a previously stated decision of suspending him for an indefinite time period.

“Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension,” Facebook is “suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7th this year,” a statement by the company said.

“At the end of this period, if we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded,” the statement adds.

"We know that any penalty we apply — or choose not to apply — will be controversial. There are many people who believe it was not appropriate for a private company like Facebook to suspend an outgoing President from its platform, and many others who believe Mr. Trump should have immediately been banned for life. We know today’s decision will be criticized by many people on opposing sides of the political divide — but our job is to make a decision in as proportionate, fair and transparent a way as possible, in keeping with the instruction given to us by the Oversight Board." the statement added.

The decision comes after Facebook Oversight Board, while upholding Trump’s suspension last month, criticized the open-ended nature of the suspension, saying that “it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension.”

The Oversight Board instructed Facebook to review the decision and respond in a way that is "clear and proportionate, and made a number of recommendations on how to improve our policies and processes."

The former president was deplatformed after it was deemed that his 'incendiary' posts were partly responsible for the deadly storming of the Capitol on Jan 6.

On Jan 7, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had announced that Trump was suspended for using the platform “to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.” The risk of leaving him on Facebook, Zuckerberg said then, was “simply too great.”

Facebook also unveiled a new framework under which it could slap a two-year ban on public figures deemed to have indulged in inciteful behaviour during “times of civil unrest and ongoing violence”.

Trump, who enjoyed a cult status in various social media platforms, had a combined 56 million followers across Facebook and Instagram when he was thrown out.

Reacting to the Facebook's announcement that he will be banned from the platform for at least another two years, the former president said "“Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business!” Trump said in a statement."