Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen testifying remotely during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled, “Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election,? on Facebook and Twitter’s content moderation practices, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 17, 2020.
Hannah McKay | Reuters
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday said the company would block President Donald Trump from posting for the remainder of his term, saying the “risks of allowing the President” to continue using the social media platform “are simply too great.”
The decision comes after Facebook on Wednesday said it would lock Trump’s account for 24 hours, preventing him from posting on the service. Facebook-owned Instagram also locked Trump’s account on the service.
Here’s the full post from Zuckerberg, which was published to his personal Facebook account:
The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.
His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world. We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect — and likely their intent — would be to provoke further violence.
Following the certification of the election results by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after inauguration pass peacefully and in accordance with established democratic norms.
Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies. We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.
We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.
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