In less than 1 year, Donald Trump could be back on social media

On January 7, 2023, former President Donald Trump's ban from Facebook is set to potentially expire. Undoubtedly, there is already talk about what will happen when that date comes at the Meta offices in California.

Suppose we are to predict whether Facebook will let Donald Trump back on their platform based on how large social media companies have acted in the aftermath of the 2020 election and the upcoming 2022 election. In that case, there is a good chance that Meta will restore Trump's Facebook privileges.

However, doing so could be very dangerous; as we saw with the Capitol Riot, allowing Trump access to social media so he can spread false and dangerous claims is no small matter. Click on to read about how and why Donald Trump got kicked off social media

The social network suspended the (then-)president right after the Capitol riot of January 6, saying he broke the conditions of use for the platform.

In May 2021, the Facebook Oversight Board confirmed that this sanction was just. "Trump's posts during the Capitol riot severely violated Facebook's rules and encouraged and legitimized violence," the Board said.

However, the committee of experts also stated that they did not consider it "appropriate" to issue an indefinite suspension of the ex-president's account. Facebook has taken that statement into account and extended the suspension until 2023 - a long period but not eternal.

The conditional end of the suspension falls right after the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections: a period of polarization, an electorate vulnerable to false information, and an increased risk of extremists inciting violence.

On January 6th, 2021, Trump's Instagram and Facebook accounts were blocked. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote that he believed Trump's statements at that time would incite further violence in the Capitol Hill riots.

In the months before the presidential election, Donald Trump used social media to build paranoia in his followers regarding the validity of the electoral process. He claimed that if mail-in ballots were used, it would be a rigged election.

Donald Trump certainly gave the Facebook moderators a lot of work! Around election time and the days following the election, nearly every post by Trump on Facebook came with an advisory warning that his statements were not backed by the actual data.

Before the Capitol riot of January 6, President Trump had repeatedly claimed, falsely, that his victory in the 2020 presidential elections had been stolen from him. He held an in-person speech to the angry crowd in Washington, DC on the day of the riot, encouraging the mass to go to the Capitol and 'Stop the Steal.'

Once the attack on the Capitol got out of hand, Trump posted a video on Facebook and Twitter (in this photo) in which he asked rioters to go home but also repeated that the election had been stolen and that he "loved" the people in the angry mob.

On January the 7th, the temporary block from January 6th was extended. Facebook released the following statement: "We believe the risks of allowing President Trump to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great, so we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks."

On January 21st, a day after President Biden's inauguration, the Facebook management team decided to hand over the decision about Trump's suspension from Instagram and Facebook to an independent oversight board.

Both Facebook and its oversight board concluded that Trump had used social media to set the stage for anger among his followers. He claimed victory before all the votes had been counted and encouraged his followers to fight anyone who decided otherwise (like the Congressmembers in Capitol Hill). For this reason, he was suspended.

After he was blocked from mainstream social media, Donald Trump used his website to communicate his thoughts to the public. In a section titled 'From the Desk of Donald Trump,' fans could check out the ex-president's opinions on US politics through bitesize (Tweet-like) statements.

Among the messages shared by the ex-president 'From the Desk of Donald Trump' were his common statements that the election had been "fraudulent" and a "big lie."

After a few months, Trump's team stopped posting on the website though. They said the impact of the messages 'From the Desk of Donald Trump' was not big enough to keep going.

As a result, in the autumn of 2021, Donald Trump announced he was starting his own social media platform called TRUTH Social, an alternative to Twitter.

Click here to read all about TRUTH Social.