Meta Platforms will be ending its restrictions on Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, in keeping with what it said was its role in informing US voters in the lead-up to November's presidential election.
Accounts belonging to the former president and convicted felon were suspended indefinitely by Meta's social media platforms on January 7, 2021, a day after he encouraged his supporters to storm the US Capitol, resulting in the deaths of five people.
In January 2023, California-based reinstated Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, but with measures in place to deter repeat offences.
Now, 18 months after that reinstatement, Meta said ending the restrictions on Trump – the presumptive Republican nominee – is based on its “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. As a result, former President Trump … will no longer be subject to the heightened suspension penalties,” Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, wrote in the updated blog.
He added that the restrictions have not had to be deployed, considering that the penalties “were a response to extreme and extraordinary circumstances”.
Meta, however, made it clear that all political candidates remain subject to Facebook and Instagram's community guidelines.
“We will review accounts subject to this protocol on a periodic basis to determine whether heightened suspension penalties for community standards violations remain appropriate,” Mr Clegg said.
“We will make this determination by weighing our responsibility, as outlined by the oversight board,” which was formally launched in October 2020 to police content on the world's biggest social media platform.
Trump is on course for a rematch with Democratic US President Joe Biden, who defeated the billionaire in arguably the most heated election in US history.
The November vote is also shaping up to be incendiary, following a chaotic first presidential debate, in which Mr Biden stumbled at times, raising calls for him to step down from the race.
Trump, meanwhile, is a prolific user of social media, particularly X when it was still known as Twitter, using his channels as his main means of communicating with his supporters.
He has a large following – 34 million on Facebook, 25 million on Instagram and 87.2 million on X, which is the ninth-highest.
The then-Twitter also permanently banned Trump on January 9, 2021, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”. Elon Musk, who bought the company for $44 billion in October 2022 and eventually renamed it X, reinstated Trump in November 2022 after running a poll among users.
However, Trump had decided not to return to X and has only tweeted once, on August 25, 2023, since the insurrection.
Trump's shutdown from social media drove him to create his own platform, Truth Social, which also has guidelines to weed out misinformation.
It also gives the former president a less hostile base, despite a meagre 4.83 million followers as of 2023, according to data from Statista.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Review: Tomb Raider
Dir: Roar Uthaug
Starring: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Daniel Wu, Walter Goggins
two stars
World Cup warm-up fixtures
Friday, May 24:
- Pakistan v Afghanistan (Bristol)
- Sri Lanka v South Africa (Cardiff)
Saturday, May 25
- England v Australia (Southampton)
- India v New Zealand (The Oval, London)
Sunday, May 26
- South Africa v West Indies (Bristol)
- Pakistan v Bangladesh (Cardiff)
Monday, May 27
- Australia v Sri Lanka (Southampton)
- England v Afghanistan (The Oval, London)
Tuesday, May 28
- West Indies v New Zealand (Bristol)
- Bangladesh v India (Cardiff)
UAE cricketers abroad
Sid Jhurani is not the first cricketer from the UAE to go to the UK to try his luck.
Rameez Shahzad Played alongside Ben Stokes and Liam Plunkett in Durham while he was studying there. He also played club cricket as an overseas professional, but his time in the UK stunted his UAE career. The batsman went a decade without playing for the national team.
Yodhin Punja The seam bowler was named in the UAE’s extended World Cup squad in 2015 despite being just 15 at the time. He made his senior UAE debut aged 16, and subsequently took up a scholarship at Claremont High School in the south of England.
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Terror attacks in Paris, November 13, 2015
- At 9.16pm, three suicide attackers killed one person outside the Atade de France during a foootball match between France and Germany
- At 9.25pm, three attackers opened fire on restaurants and cafes over 20 minutes, killing 39 people
- Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed
- Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest
- He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France
Match info:
Burnley 0
Manchester United 2
Lukaku (22', 44')
Red card: Marcus Rashford (Man United)
Man of the match: Romelu Lukaku (Manchester United)
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Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
Stree
Producer: Maddock Films, Jio Movies
Director: Amar Kaushik
Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, Abhishek Banerjee
Rating: 3.5
More on Quran memorisation:
More on Quran memorisation:
The years Ramadan fell in May
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sept 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Mubadala World Tennis Championship 2018 schedule
Thursday December 27
Men's quarter-finals
Kevin Anderson v Hyeon Chung 4pm
Dominic Thiem v Karen Khachanov 6pm
Women's exhibition
Serena Williams v Venus Williams 8pm
Friday December 28
5th place play-off 3pm
Men's semi-finals
Rafael Nadal v Anderson/Chung 5pm
Novak Djokovic v Thiem/Khachanov 7pm
Saturday December 29
3rd place play-off 5pm
Men's final 7pm
