META HAS ANNOUNCED that it would soon reinstate with “new guardrails” former president Donald Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which have been banned since the US Capitol riot in January 2021.

“We will be reinstating Mr. Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks,” said a statement by Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, adding that the reinstatement would come with “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.”

Two years ago, Meta took action in what it described were “were extreme and highly unusual circumstances”. This was following the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Meta said in a statement (which can be read in full here): “We indefinitely suspended then-US President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts following his praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. We then referred that decision to the Oversight Board — an expert body established to be an independent check and balance on our decision-making.”

Trump, in a post on his own social media network, condemned Facebook’s decision to suspend his account as he praised his own site, Truth Social.

“FACEBOOK, which has lost Billions of Dollars in value since ‘deplatforming’ your favorite President, me, has just announced that they are reinstating my account. Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!” he wrote.

In November, Elon Musk reinstated Trump’s account after asking Twitter users to vote on the issue. Trump had also been banned since a pro-Trump mob attacked the US Capitol on January 6 2021 as Congress was poised to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.