SAN FRANCISCO, June 4 (Xinhua) – Facebook announced on Friday that it had suspended the accounts of former US President Donald Trump for two years, the maximum penalty provided for by a new set of rules on suspending public figures. These accounts were first closed sine die on January 7.
“Today we are announcing new execution protocols to be applied in exceptional cases like this and we confirm the time-limited sanction in accordance with these protocols that we are applying to Mr. Trump’s accounts,” said Nick Clegg. , Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, in a statement.
“We believe his actions were a serious breach of our rules which deserves the highest sanction available under the new enforcement protocols. We suspend his accounts for two years, from the date of the initial suspension, January 7 of this year, “he added.
Facebook said it would reassess this suspension to decide whether to end or extend it. According to Clegg, the company will turn to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has diminished by the end of the two-year suspension.
“If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a specified period and continue to reassess until that risk is gone,” he said.
“When the suspension is finally lifted, a set of strict and rapidly increasing sanctions will be triggered if Mr. Trump commits further violations in the future, including the permanent deletion of his pages and accounts,” he said. he noted, acknowledging in advance that any sanction that society applies – or chooses not to apply – will be controversial.
Under this new regulation on strengthened sanctions for public figures in times of civil unrest and violence, any violator may be prohibited from creating content for a period ranging from one month to two years. Violations after the initial restrictions will be subject to increased penalties up to and including final removal.
The Facebook Supervisory Board (FOB) voted in May against the reestablishment of Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, while ruling that it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose an “indefinite” suspension. He therefore asked him to re-examine the case and either restore these accounts, or make the ban permanent or define a suspension for a specific period.
According to media reports, the FOB brings together some 20 former political leaders, human rights activists and journalists chosen by Facebook to deliberate on the company’s content decisions. End
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