Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO has announced in a post that they are banning President Donald Trump “indefinitely” from Facebook.
This comes after they imposed a 24 hour ban on the President on both Instagram and Facebook after he posted controversial content on the social networks. Twitter and Snapchat locked the President too on the same day after his actions.
“Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies. We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government,” Mark Zuckerberg said in the post.
Zuckerberg added that they believe that his decision to use the platform to condone rather than condemn actions of his supporters has rightly “disturbed people in the US and around the world.”
“We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete,” Zuckerberg concluded.
This is the first time we have seen a permanent and standing action by a major social network on Trump. We will have to wait and see what Twitter, Snapchat and the rest will do after Facebook’s move.
