Donald Trump calls for unblocking Facebook and Instagram accounts to Meta

It’s been two years recently since Donald Trump, the former US president, was blocked from most social media following the attack on the Capitol building in Washington with his support. Despite efforts to create his own network, Trump’s voice on the internet has softened, and he seems to be keen to get back into the public eye as the US presidential election approaches again. Trump has already started asking companies like Meta to unblock his accounts.

Trump seems to want access to Meta’s ad platform

At the time of Trump’s block, Twitter offered a “permanent” suspension under the leadership at the time, which means it will never be unblocked again. However, since taking over Twitter, Elon Musk has unblocked most of the blocked accounts based on all sorts of abuses, including Trump’s. Despite unblocking, the former US president has not returned to Twitter, as many expected.

But it seems Trump wants a presence on Meta, most likely so he can run ads on Facebook and Instagram platforms about the next election, which will take place in 2024. Incidentally, the Facebook company (as it was known at the time), has promised that this suspension will last a minimum of two years and that in 2023 it will review the situation again and decide whether or not to keep Trump’s accounts suspended.

Meta is reportedly considering lifting the suspension, as company representatives told NBC News that they will make a decision on the matter in the next few weeks, based on the procedure they previously established. Incidentally, the original suspension wasn’t final, but it does put Trump in a tricky situation. Repeating the violation after his accounts are restored again could lead to their complete deletion.

Trump has more than 34 million followers on Facebook and more than 70 million on Twitter. In the 2016 election, which he won, Trump ran more than 5.9 million different ads to test which were most effective on social media. These actions resulted in limiting high-volume ads on Meta platforms, an action that would have resulted in him losing the 2020 election.