Decision on whether to lift Trump ban looms over Meta

Meta’s suspension of former President Donald Trump has hit the end of the company’s self-imposed timeline, putting the tech titan back in the spotlight as it decides whether to restore his access to Facebook and Instagram in 2023.

The company has not yet publicly indicated plans for the Trump ban.

The two-year suspension of Mr. Trump’s account expired Saturday. 

Facebook first removed Mr. Trump amid the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, then five months later announced the two-year suspension, retroactive to Jan. 7, 2021.

Meta executive Nick Clegg previously said in 2021 the company would reevaluate its ban at the end of the two-year restriction and would extend the suspension if the company believed a serious risk to public safety existed because of Mr. Trump’s access to his accounts.

Whether the platform follows Twitter’s lead in reversing its ban remains unclear. Twitter owner Elon Musk restored the former president’s access to that social media platform last year.

Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company will make a decision soon.

“We will announce a decision in the coming weeks in line with the process we laid out,” Mr. Stone said in a statement.

Since the company first removed Mr. Trump in 2021, much has changed for Facebook and the social media marketplace.

Mr. Trump sued Facebook, created his own platform Truth Social and launched a new campaign for the presidency in 2024.

If Mr. Trump’s access is restored to Facebook, he may choose not to publish there anyway. Mr. Trump agreed to restrictions ensuring he posts first on Truth Social before publishing on other platforms like Facebook as part of a business deal, according to a 2022 regulatory filing from his partners for the social media business.  

Mr. Trump ripped Facebook last week over his removal.

“Sadly, Facebook has been doing very poorly since they took me off,” Mr. Trump said in a statement last Thursday. “It has lost $750 Billion in value, and has become very boring. Hopefully, Facebook will be able to turn it around.”

He also chastised Facebook for rebranding under the banner of Meta, and Mr. Trump said the name change represented one of the “worst decisions in Business History!”

Facebook reorganized as Meta in the fall of 2021. The tech behemoth pivoted away from social media as its primary focus and toward “metaverse” offerings involving alternate reality and virtual reality products.

The company has suffered amid broad economic pressures in recent months. In November 2022, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced he was laying off more than 11,000 workers, which represented approximately 13% of the company’s workforce.