Facebook suspends Donald Trump for 2 years, then will reassess
San Francisco, Jun 4: Facebook said it will suspend former President Donald Trump's accounts for two years following its finding that he stoked violence ahead of the deadly January 6 insurrection.
At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded. We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest, Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president of global affairs, wrote in a blog post Friday.
Facebook also plans to end a contentious policy championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that automatically exempted politicians from rules that banned hate speech and abuse.
The company has said it has never applied this policy to Trump.
The social media giant said on Friday that while it will still apply this newsworthiness" exemption to certain posts it deems to be in the public interest even if they violate Facebook rules, it will no longer treat material posted by politicians any differently from that posted by anyone else.
In addition, Facebook said it will make public whenever it does apply the exemption to a post.
The announcements are in response to recommendations from the company's quasi-independent oversight board.
Last month that panel upheld a decision by Facebook to keep former Trump indefinitely suspended but said the company could not merely suspend him indefinitely and gave it six months to decide what to do with his accounts.
In its decision last month, the board agreed with Facebook that two of Trump's January 6 posts severely violated the content standards of both Facebook and Instagram.
We love you. You're very special, Trump said to the rioters in the first post. In the second, he called them great patriots and told them to remember this day forever.
Those violated Facebook's rules against praising or supporting people engaged in violence, the board said, warranting the suspension.
Specifically, the board cited Facebook's rules against dangerous individuals and organisations, which prohibit anyone who proclaims a violent mission and bans posts that express support or praise of these people or groups.
Facebook has had a general newsworthiness exemption since 2016. But it garnered attention in 2019 when Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs and communications, announced that speech from politicians will be treated as newsworthy content that should, as a general rule, be seen and heard.
The newsworthiness exemption, he explained in a blog post at the time, meant that if someone makes a statement or shares a post which breaks our community standards we will still allow it on our platform if we believe the public interest in seeing it outweighs the risk of harm.
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NDA's win in Bihar Assembly bypolls a matter of concern: Prashant Kishor
Patna, Nov 23: Political strategist turned activist Prashant Kishor on Saturday dubbed as "a matter of concern" the NDA's win in assembly by-polls in Bihar despite "failure" of the BJP-led coalition to end the state's chronic backwardness during it's decades-long rule.
Talking to reporters here shortly after the results were out, Kishor also drew succour from the fact that his fledgling Jan Suraaj won "10 per cent" of the total votes polled in four seats, but rubbished the claim that it had played a role in the RJD's defeat in three of these.
"RJD is a 30-year-old party. The son of its state president finished third. Can Jan Suraaj be faulted for that? In Belaganj all Muslim votes went to the JD(U) candidate. In Imamganj, the Jan Suraaj cut into NDA votes. Else, the victory margin of (Union minister) Jitan Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha would have been bigger", asserted Kishor.
Notably, Imamganj, a reserved seat, was retained by Manjhi's daughter-in-law Deepa, who defeated the RJD candidate by a thin margin of less than 6,000 votes. Jan Suraaj candidate Jitendra Paswan finished third, polling more than 37,000 votes.
When pointed out that in three of the four seats, candidates of Jan Suraaj had polled less than one-sixth of the total votes and ran the risk of losing their deposits, Kishor shot back "That should not be a matter of concern (chinta ki baat). If there is a matter of concern, it is the ability of the NDA to make a clean sweep despite having ruled Bihar for so long and "failed" to end the state's backwardness".
The IPAC founder, who had a brief stint in the JD(U), insisted that the party's supremo Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar, was a "spent force" and its candidate, former MLC Manorama Devi, had won on her own steam.
"We have always said that our fight is with NDA, not with RJD despite its claim of being the largest party in Bihar.....(but) Nitish Kumar is no factor. His party polled just about 11 per cent of total votes", said Kishor.
About his own party's inability to make a mark, Kishor said "We have secured 10 per cent votes..... in seats where Jan Suraaj had no presence since these areas were yet to be covered by my padyatra. Also, please note that we got our poll symbol after filing of nomination papers was over".
He also maintained that the Jan Suraaj will go solo in the assembly polls due next year when it will contest "all 243 seats".
"We were initially written off but by garnering about 10 per cent votes, in a state known to vote along predictable caste lines, we have proved a point. In the next few months we shall be strengthening the organization to ensure that vote share of the Jan Suraaj improves", he said.
