Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg has banned Donald Trump from Facebook and Instagram indefinitely, saying the risks to America’s democracy are too great for the US President to be allowed back on the platforms, amid concerns Trump will continue to incite his supporters to carry out more riots.
Zuckerberg released a statement on his Facebook page saying that “the shocking events clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.”
“Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labelling his posts when they violate our policies,” Zuckerberg wrote.
“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.
“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.”
Facebook also owns Instagram.
Twitter also locked Trump out of his Twitter account for 12 hours and demanded he remove three of his tweets.
It does not appear that the President has regained access to his account as he has not yet resumed tweeting.
