Facebook has announced that "former US President Donald
Trump's Instagram and Facebook accounts will be suspended for two years, at the
end of which time the decision to restore will be based on the
circumstances."
The former US president's accounts were suspended by Facebook
earlier this year, but it was not immediately clear how long the suspension
would last.
A few days ago, it was reported that Facebook's Oversight
Board will determine the duration of the suspension.
A statement from Facebook on Friday stated that "the
Oversight Board has upheld the ban on Trump's Instagram and Facebook accounts,
but criticized the nature of the ban."
Facebook suspended the accounts of those involved in the
violence in Washington on January 6 this year by the former US president.
A blog post published on the platform by Nick Clegg,
Facebook's vice president of global affairs, confirmed that the oversight board
had criticized the lack of clarity in the nature of the account suspension,
saying: "This is not appropriate for Facebook. To impose an indefinite suspension.
"The board has instructed us to reconsider the decision
and respond in a clear and appropriate manner. Several suggestions have been
made to improve the policy in this regard," the Facebook blog post said.
According to Vice President Nick Clegg, "Today we are
announcing new protocols that will apply to non-traditional matters like
this."
"Given the circumstances that led to the suspension of
Mr. Trump's account, we believe that his actions violated our laws, which
deserve the most punishment under the new protocols."
"Therefore, we are suspending their accounts for two
years. This period of suspension has started from January 7 this year."
According to the vice president of Facebook, "At the end
of this period, we will seek the opinion of experts on whether the threat to
public safety has been reduced or notThe blog post added: "If the accounts
are restored, the matter will be taken seriously and if Trump violates further,
his pages and accounts may be permanently deleted."
Facebook says the "two-year period is designed to
prevent others, including Trump, from committing such violations and that the
punishment is on par with the violations."
According to the vice president of the social network,
"We are grateful to the Oversight Board for making the right decision to
suspend Trump's accounts." However, we acknowledge that we did not have
the rules for such an extraordinary case before.
According to Facebook, "We anticipate that whatever we
decide or not will be controversial. There will be many who would consider it
inappropriate on the part of a private company, while many would say that Trump
should have been banned immediately.
"We anticipate that opponents in politics will also
oppose today's decision, but we have a responsibility to make a decision that
is appropriate, transparent and honest," he said.