Is it possible to argue that suspending Donald Trump from various social media sites after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on our nation’s Capitol was the right decision, and to believe also that allowing him back on those same sites now is correct?
Of course it is. Because the situation today is different from the one 24 months back. Which is not to suggest that the former president himself has cleaned up his act. In fact, there’s no reason to believe that he’s done anything of the sort, but that’s another story entirely.
These questions have once again come to the fore with the decision by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to restore Trump’s access to those sites. This comes on the heels of Twitter’s decision to unban the former president.
Trump was booted off various social media sites after the riot he inspired because of fears that he could further inflame his followers, creating even more havoc, and greater danger. But that was more than two years ago now. The suspension was never meant to be permanent, and was from the first supposed to be open to review at some point down the line.
If you believe that social media sites ought generally seek to allow speech, barring only that which is clearly in violation of the law, then you can easily get behind Meta’s move on Trump.
He is, after all, a former president, remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party and has already declared his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination next year. All of which should favor his inclusion among the ranks of those on social media.
This is not to suggest that his being back will be a pretty thing. He continues to post to Truth Social, a fledgling site, but has not yet posted to Twitter, despite having been reinstated several weeks back. Meta says he will be back on its sites soon.
How much he’ll be posting, if at all, remains to be seen, but it’s difficult to imagine that the former guy will find it easy to stay away indefinitely. No matter your feelings about Trump, his posts to Twitter frequently made news.
But given his increasingly unhinged, often racist rants on Truth Social, the biggest winner from Trump’s social media restoration may well be the anti-Trump crowd.
— Tribune News Service
