• Donald Trump is looking to return to Facebook and Twitter ahead of his 2024 election goals.
• Reports indicate Trump’s campaign aides are organising meetings with Meta officials to see if the controversial statesman can have his Facebook account reinstated.
• Meanwhile, Twitter CEO Elon Musk has already reinstated Trump’s account on the bird platform but Trump is yet to expectorate a new tweet.

Former US president Donald Trump is looking to make his return to Facebook and Twitter after he was banned from both platforms near the end of his presidency in 2021.

Trump is preparing to make another attempt at the presidency in the 2024 US presidential elections and has been declared as a candidate by the Republic Party, to run against incumbent Joe Biden.

Trump wants back on Facebook

The lightning-rod politician and his aides are making forays into getting back on Meta’s social network and are contacting Meta directly to make this happen.

“We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse,” Trump’s campaign wrote in a letter to Meta on Tuesday, according to NBC News who attained a copy.

Campaign staff are looking to meet with Meta officials like CEO Mark Zuckerberg to organise Trump’s return to Facebook.

Despite the recent exploding popularity of platforms like TikTok, Facebook is still the undisputed social media king with 2.9 billion monthly average users, according to Buffer. The inability for Trump to promote his particular brand of rhetoric on the world’s largest social network would no doubt be a hindrance to campaign efforts.

Added to this are significant fundraising ad revenues that Trump was gaining from his Facebook page since 2020, according to Axios. Heading into the 2024 elections without the platform would mean limiting his fundraising capabilities.

In a recent interview with Fox News, Trump claimed that Facebook needs him and that since his expulsion from the site it had lost more than “$700 billion.” The former president did not say from where he received this information.

A reason why Trump may not be allowed back on the platform is the same reason he was removed in the first place. Facebook decided in 2021 to ban Trump’s accounts after comments he made following the deadly 6th January Capitol riots.

The social media giant said following the riots Trump’s account would be banned for two years. This period lapsed on 7th January 2023, something that was pointed out by Trump’s campaign.

Facebook may not want to welcome the former president back with open arms as it currently fights allegations that it is a hotbed for extremism and violence. In 2022, Facebook’s algorithm was found to have been promoting the genocide of thousands of ethnic Rohingya people in Myanmar that occurred in 2017.

The platform is also alleged to have been used to promote ethnic killings during the 2020 – 2022 Ethiopian civil war.

Tech accountability groups are urging Facebook to keep Trump off its platform, citing the potential for violence that could be spurred by the former president’s rhetoric and false claims of election fraud – which spurred the Capitol riots in the first place.

Elon Musk opens the door for Trump on Twitter

Almost in contrast to Facebook, Twitter has already reinstated Trump’s account on its platform even as the politician has yet to return.

In November last year, Chief Twit Elon Musk issued a poll asking his followers if Trump’s account should be reinstated. The majority was slight with 51.8 percent voting yes.

Although Trump’s Twitter account became infamous for its outrageousness at times, it doesn’t seem to be as important for his bottom line compared to opportunities found on Facebook. It is still believed that he will likely return as part of his campaign efforts.

Trump’s last tweet was issued on 8th January 2021, stating that he would not be going to President Biden’s inauguration.

[Image – Darren Halstead on Unsplash]