Meta drops restrictions on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts

Former President Donald Trump will no longer be subject to extra severe penalties for content rule violations on his Facebook and Instagram accounts, Meta said on Friday.

Previously, Trump’s account could be fully suspended for even a relatively small infraction that wouldn’t lead to the same penalty for any other account. Now, with the Republican National Convention taking place next week, he’ll be treated more like everyone else.

“In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis,” Meta’s president of of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said in a company blog post. He added that the previous restrictions to Trump’s accounts “were a response to extreme and extraordinary circumstances, and have not had to be deployed.”

No politician has tested and contorted Meta’s content policies like Trump. The company famously suspended him alongside other platforms after January 6th, 2021. At the beginning of 2023, he was allowed back on Facebook and Instagram but still placed in the penalty box, with Meta saying at the time that “further violating content” could get his account suspended again for up to two years.

Since June 30th, Trump has started posting regularly on Facebook again, sharing videos of his rallies and attacks on President Joe Biden. He has 34 million followers on Facebook versus Biden’s 11 million. On Instagram, he has nearly 25 million versus Biden’s 17.1 million.