Former President Donald Trump wants to get back on one of the world’s biggest social media platforms, Facebook, as he is preparing to kick-start the campaign for his recently announced 2024 presidential bid.
The former President got his Twitter account back and now wants Meta to unblock his Facebook account after being banned from the platform two years ago in response to his supporters’ raid of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump’s campaign team wrote a formal letter to Meta, Facebook’s parent company, on Tuesday, January 17, asking the company to let him back onto the platform.
According to a copy of the letter, Trump’s team believes his Facebook ban had distorted and inhibited public communication.
The letter did not threaten Meta with a lawsuit, opting to discuss free speech on the platform and petitioning the company to accept a meeting to discuss reinstating the former President to the platform.
Facebook’s only comment to Trump’s request was that the company would make a decision in the coming weeks.
Twitter and Facebook, the biggest social media platforms in the world, banned Trump after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill intending to interfere with Congress and stop Joe Biden’s certification as the legitimately elected US President.
Facebook decided to make Trump’s ban indefinite and review it after two years, which ended on January 7, 2023.
Twitter had planned to ban the former President from the platform permanently, but once Elon Musk took over as the new owner, Twitter promptly reinstated Trump’s account, with Musk saying he wanted to promote free speech on his platform.
However, despite his account being reinstated, Trump emphasized that he would stick to his own social media platform, which he likes better.
With the presidential elections coming up, Trump recognizes the power of his social media accounts in reaching voters. The former President has 34 million and 88 million followers on Facebook and Twitter, respectively. He only has about five million followers on his personal platform.
Although the former President had yet to tweet since his reinstatement on Twitter last year, experts believe that he will not pass up the chance to interact with his 88 million followers and will return to the platform soon.
Despite Trump getting ready to return to Facebook, some people are not too excited to see him back. Last month, four Democratic lawmakers wrote to Facebook appealing to them to continue with the ban on Trump.
Democratic House Representative Adam Schiff wrote the letter, signed by three other Democrats, saying that Trump has been posting harmful content on his platform and that would likely extend over to Facebook if they let him back in.
