January 2023 is an interesting time to consider Trump’s future on social media, because … well, this:
Nonetheless it’s a striking statement: Facebook continues to see Donald Trump as a a threat to public safety.
In a statement, Trump grumped that the continuing suspension was “an insult,” saying “They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win. Our Country can’t take this abuse anymore!”
Trump, of course, can combat efforts to silence him by going on Fox News, One America News, Newsmax, any of dozens of heavily listened right-wing podcasts, or his own blog. Well, not that last one. He had to shut it down because it was such a failure. It’s amazing, really, how irrelevant Trump has become, even as Republicans cling to him, trying to twist Congress to his wishes and using their power in Arizona to try to delegitimize the 2020 election in that state. But give him back his big platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and the threat very much returns.
Facebook’s announcement on Trump’s fate was accompanied by a shift in how the social media company will deal with politicians more generally. “Under Facebook’s new policies, posts made directly by politicians still won’t be subject to review by the company’s network of independent fact checkers. But they will for the first time be opened up to enforcement against more rules for things like bullying that Facebook’s moderators apply to other users,” The Verge reported. According to ArsTechnica, “the new policy could represent a marked shift from Facebook’s stance toward politicians over the last several years.” We’ll believe that Facebook is really enforcing its rules evenhandedly when we see it, but if the company does significantly change how much leeway it gives politicians, even if Trump is reinstated in 2023, he could be returning to a very different platform.
For now, though, everyone point and laugh at the guy who lost his election, his Twitter account, and his Facebook account. He hates it when you do that.
Source: http://feeds.dailykosmedia.com/~r/dailykosofficial/~3/JB_cdhRKcpg/-Facebook-will-keep-Trump-s-suspension-in-place-until-2023-and-tighten-the-leash-on-all-politicians