Facebook says it will suspend former President Trump’s accounts for two years following its finding that he stoked violence ahead of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection. “At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded," Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president of global affairs, wrote in a blog post Friday, per the AP. "When the suspension is eventually lifted, there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if Mr. Trump commits further violations in future, up to and including permanent removal of his pages and accounts," he wrote. Facebook also plans to end a contentious policy championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that automatically exempted politicians from certain moderation rules on its site.
The social media giant said on Friday that while it will still apply this “newsworthiness" exemption to certain posts it deems to be in the public interest even if they violate Facebook rules, it will no longer treat material posted by politicians any differently from what's posted by anyone else. The move is in response to recommendations from the company's quasi-independent oversight board, which last month upheld a decision by Facebook to keep Trump indefinitely suspended but said the company must decide what to do with his accounts within 6 months. Friday's decision is an answer to that.
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