Description
For a company looking to host and control human speech across the globe, one of Meta's biggest challenges is a single user: Donald Trump. Les comptes Facebook et Instagram de l'ancien président seront rétablis dans les prochaines semaines, annoncé mercidi la société mère Meta Platforms Inc., préparant les platformes pour un test très public et à fort enjeu alors qu'il presente à nouveau aux élections next year. Trump will face "tougher penalties for repeat offences," Meta's head of global affairs Nick Clegg said Wednesday. While those policies would apply to any public figure reinstated after civil unrest, Trump is currently the only person in that category.
To deter multiple violations, Trump will strengthen Meta's system of strikes as punishment for posting prohibited content such as hate speech and incitement to violence. Although most users receive up to five offenses before a 30-day restriction of interaction on the platforms, this sanction would be triggered by a single infraction by the former president.
More serious violations could result in another two-year suspension.
The policy Clegg cited was formulated after Trump was suspended in 2021 and was updated on Wednesday. The company describes public figures as elected officials, candidates and newsworthy accounts with more than a million followers, people whose content poses a "higher risk of harm" due to their influence.
Because Trump has already declared his candidacy for president in 2024, he will not be subject to fact checks, according to Meta's policy for politicians. However, any message from Trump that plays on the type of unrest that preceded the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, "such as content that delegitimizes an upcoming election or is related to QAnon," according to Clegg, you could face sharing limitations. on Facebook and Instagram.
Several social media platforms suspended Trump's accounts two years ago after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying his electoral defeat to Joe Biden. Meta at the time said that Trump's messages praised those involved in the violence, which posed a risk to public safety.
The decision was taken to the Meta Fiscal Oversight Board, an unofficial tribunal paid for by the company but outside its corporate hierarchy that issues non-binding opinions. The board accepted the decision to suspend Trump's accounts, but said the indefinite freeze was arbitrary and should be reconsidered.
The proper design of content moderation and the consequences of violations has plagued Facebook for over a decade. Republicans accuse the platform of being biased against the right, but internal company documents released by a whistleblower in 2021 revealed that the company often broke its own rules to avoid punishing prominent conservatives for violations.
One shot penalty
Meta applies warnings to user accounts for each post that violates the community guidelines, increasing the length of the suspension, according to the rules published by the company. For most users, a single warning will only get them a warning, while five warnings would result in a 30-day restriction from posting or interacting with other content.
Trump would be subject to the most accelerated scale of consequences for a single attack, according to Clegg.
The Meta Community Guidelines include violation categories such as violence and incitement, fraud and deceit, human exploitation, and hate speech. Most of the categories describe examples of content that is not allowed, including specific slurs associated with ethnic groups and concepts or words that are prohibited in that context. Categories also include post types that require additional information or context to be judged.
There are, however, some exceptions. A post determined to be satirical will not have the same consequences. Certain posts deemed newsworthy will not be removed "if keeping them visible is in the public interest," according to Meta's public statements.
Meta also refused to fact check politicians under the media interest waiver, saying the social media platform does not want to intervene when lawmakers and policymakers speak. Meta confirmed that Trump, as the 2024 candidate, will not be subject to fact-checking on its platforms.
Twitter suspension lifted
Twitter Inc.'s suspension of the former president was lifted last year after Elon Musk, who bought the platform in October, asked his followers if they would allow him back. Trump has yet to tweet and continues to post on his own Truth Social platform.
It's unclear if or when Trump plans to use his newly restored Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday blaming his suspension on the recent drop in Meta's market value, saying "something like this should never happen again to a sitting president, or anyone else who doesn't deserve retaliation."
