Trump video: Facebook removed Donald Trump interview with Lara Trump
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said the video was not permitted on Facebook and Instagram because of the former president’s indefinite suspension after the deadly Capitol riot.
On Tuesday, Lara Trump posted on Instagram: “BIG SHOW TONIGHT – I will be joined by President Donald Trump on The Right View!!”
Lara Trump, who is married to Eric Trump, received an email from Facebook that content with the voice of former President Trump “is not currently allowed on our platforms (including new posts with President Trump speaking).”
Facebook warned that any future posts would also be removed “resulting in additional limitations on accounts that posted it.” Lara Trump then posted the video interview on the social network Rumble.
Facebook’s Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs, wrote at the time that the decision was made in “extraordinary circumstances” in which a sitting president was “actively fomenting a violent insurrection designed to thwart the peaceful transition of power; five people killed; legislators fleeing the seat of democracy.”
“This has never happened before – and we hope it will never happen again,” he said. “It was an unprecedented set of events which called for unprecedented action.”
Lara Trump, wife of former president Donald Trump’s son Eric, addresses the Republican National Convention in a pre-recorded speech at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC, on Aug. 26.
YouTube and other social media companies also indefinitely suspended Trump’s account. Snapchat and Twitter permanently banned Trump.
Months after the former president was suspended from all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Google’s YouTube, YouTube said it would lift Trump’s ban when the “risk of incitement to violence” abates. Facebook has left the decision in the hands of an advisory board. Trump has appealed his ban from Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.
The decision to block Trump’s access to the major social media platforms following the Capitol riots was praised by Trump critics and had the support of most Americans, but was condemned by Trump supporters and free speech advocates who warned it set a dangerous precedent.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others have grown increasingly uneasy with Facebook wielding the power to silence world leaders and reshape the nation’s online conversation. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders, a virulent critic of the former president, said he was not comfortable with Big Tech blocking Trump’s access to his accounts after the deadly Capitol attack.
Trump spokesman Jason Miller said the former president would return to social media with his own social network.
“I do think that we’re going to see President Trump returning to social media, probably in about two or three months here, with his own platform,” Miller recently told Fox News.
“This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media. It’s going to completely redefine the game. And everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what President Trump does, but it will be his own platform,” Trump’s longtime adviser said.
On Wednesday, Fox News reported that plans for a Trump social network are moving forward. “President Trump will have his voice back one way or another,” a source told the network.