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Friend,
Terrible news: Meta has decided to reinstate Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.
After a two-year suspension that came on the heels of repeated violations of the company’s terms of service — and the incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol — Meta has determined that “the risk has sufficiently receded.”
Sorry, but … what?! Since being banished from Facebook, Trump has continued to spread disinformation about his 2020-election loss. He’s also spread other conspiracy theories while promoting anti-democratic beliefs shared by neo-Nazis, authoritarians and other white nationalists.
Meta claims there will be “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses” but the company’s dismal track record here speaks for itself. Free Press repeatedly found that Meta failed to adhere to its own company policies around hate and disinformation.1
Could you rush an emergency donation to Free Press so that we can ramp up our efforts to fight hate and disinformation on social media?
Allowing Trump to return to Facebook and Instagram means that his hateful rhetoric and conspiracy theories are going to move from fringe platforms like Truth Social back to the mainstream. A draft report from the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack found a clear connection between Trump’s social-media posts and political violence.
Meta is poised to make millions of dollars from political ads in the wake of Trump’s reinstatement. This move is peak greed from a company that has no interest in stopping the very spread of hate and disinformation that pads its pockets.
Free Press has been in this fight for years and we’ve been on the frontlines pushing for companies to adopt policies that will protect users. We’ve used advertising boycotts to take millions of dollars out of the platforms’ pockets. We’ve peeled back the curtain on how online hate results in real-world violence. And we’ve spent years pressuring policymakers to actually protect users with privacy laws.
This is the work we were made for. If you want to fight back too, rush an emergency donation to Free Press today.
Thank you so much for your support at this crucial moment,
Candace and the rest of the Free Press Action team
freepress.net
1. Empty Promises: Inside Big Tech's Weak Effort to Fight Hate and Lies in 2022, Free Press report, Oct. 27, 2022
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