John, Donald Trump is planning his big return to Facebook and Twitter – and I can’t emphasize enough how dangerous this is for our democracy. [1]
The last time Trump was on these platforms, he abused his massive online megaphone to incite the violent January 6th insurrection. Bipartisan investigators in Congress even called his social media vitriol “rocket fuel for extremists”. [2]
And now, he plans to bring the hateful rhetoric that he’d been forced to reserve for fringe, far-right pages like Truth Social back to mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
No one – especially Trump – should be allowed to use Twitter or Facebook to lie and incite violence. At a minimum Facebook and Twitter must fact-check Trump and hold him to the same standards as everyone else. More importantly, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms must enforce and strengthen their policies to combat disinformation, hate, and other harmful content.
Trump’s account was banned from both Twitter and Facebook two years ago when his lies and incendiary rhetoric led extremists to break into the Capitol and attempt to overturn our election results.
But this week, his team wrote to Facebook asking them to lift the ban. Elon Musk has already allowed him back on Twitter, and the Facebook team has said that they wouldn’t fact check him if he rejoins their platform.
Putting Trump back in front of a combined audience of 122 million followers – with no intention of moderating his content or countering his lies about our democracy – could be catastrophic. And social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook owe it to us to enforce their content moderation policies, shut down disinformation, and ban accounts that don’t comply.
If Facebook and Twitter choose to allow Trump back on their platform, at a bare minimum they must fact-check Donald Trump and hold him to the same standards as everyone else.
But more importantly, social media platforms must consistently enforce and strengthen their existing policies to effectively combat the spread of disinformation, hate, and other harmful content. [3] Without meaningful content moderation, our democracy will continue to be at risk.
Our democracy cannot afford more lies and hate-fueled violence that go unchecked on social media. Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms must combat disinformation and hateful content.
We can’t let election lies go unchecked – especially just a year before the 2024 presidential election.
Thanks for all you do,
Yosef Getachew, Media & Democracy Program Director
and the team at Common Cause
[1]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/donald-trump-prepares-return-facebook-twitter-rcna65809
[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/02/jan-6-committee-files-trump-evidence-00076004
[3] https://www.commoncause.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Coalition-letter-for-2022-mid-terms-1.pdf
