Social media giant Meta has removed special restrictions on the Facebook and Instagram accounts of former President Donald Trump put in place in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The company said in a statement Friday that it was doing so because the "extraordinary circumstances" surrounding the attack and its aftermath had passed, and because it wanted to put Trump and President Joe Biden on equal footing before the Nov. 5 election.
The restrictions were designed to keep Trump on a tighter leash than other Facebook and Instagram users, subjecting him to "heightened" penalties if he had violated any rules.
Facebook and Instagram locked Trump's accounts soon after the Capitol attack, and Trump remained suspended from those platforms until February 2023. Before the company reinstated his accounts, it announced the new restrictions as a guard against further potential "civil unrest."
But the company said the situation was now different with Trump set to be officially named as the Republican nominee for president at next week’s party convention in Milwaukee.
Nick Clegg, Meta's president for global affairs, said the company was balancing its commitment to allowing political expression against its responsibility "to avoid serious risks to other human rights."
“In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis,” he said in the statement posted on a Meta website.
"As a result, former President Trump, as the nominee of the Republican Party, will no longer be subject to the heightened suspension penalties," he said.
He also said that Meta never used the "heightened" penalties in the year and a half since the company announced them.
"In reaching this conclusion, we also considered that these penalties were a response to extreme and extraordinary circumstances, and have not had to be deployed," Clegg said.
He said that all presidential candidates remain subject to the same terms and conditions as all Facebook and Instagram users, including policies against hate speech and incitement to violence.
It's not clear how Trump plans to use the Facebook and Instagram platforms in the final stretch of this year's presidential race. Though the sites were important parts of his media strategy in 2016, he has since turned away from mainstream social media sites in favor of his own platform, Truth Social.
The Trump and Biden campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
