Former Meta exec Nick Clegg says his decision to ban Donald Trump from Facebook gives him sleepless nights: Weighed on me very heavily and still…
Nick Clegg, the former Meta executive who recommended banning Donald Trump from Facebook in 2021, has said that his decision still keeps him awake at night. The former British deputy prime minister, who served as Meta’s top political fixer for seven years, described the suspension of Trump’s account in January 2021 as a “very, very uncomfortable” moment that continues to haunt him. The ban was a result of Trump’s posts that were seen as inciting the Capitol riot. In January 2021, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Trump was suspended from Facebook and Instagram and noted that the risks of allowing him to post were “simply too great.” The suspension, which was initially meant to last only until the presidential transition, was later extended to two years. Later on, in 2023, Meta restored Trump’s accounts, with Clegg stating that voters “should be able to hear what their politicians are saying — the good, the bad and the ugly.”
What ex-Meta executive Nick Clegg said about banning Donald Trump from Facebook, Instagram
In a recent interview with the Guardian, Clegg said: “I found that really weighed on me very heavily and still does, On the one hand, I felt very clearly that the content rules of the company had been violated and, on the other hand … it’s an unelected private company making a decision that affects the public realm. And he was the outgoing president of the world’s most powerful democracy.”Despite justifying banning Trump in 2021 as a step required under Meta’s policies, he acknowledged that the precedent still concerns him.“In the end, in a democracy you want democratically accountable figures to thrash it out,” he added.Zuckerberg has also defended the reversal of Trump’s ban as a free-speech decision with “new guardrails,” while noting that the original ban was an emergency measure taken under extraordinary circumstances.The ban, which was later lifted under new leadership—remains one of Silicon Valley’s most debated decisions, highlighting the influence of unelected tech leaders on global politics.Earlier this year, Meta said it would revamp its content moderation policies. Zuckerberg announced the company is ending its third-party fact-checking program in the US and shifting to a Community Notes-style system, similar to the one used on X, where users add context to potentially misleading posts.
