Facebook is doing a terrible job of banning Donald Trump from its platform.
From its failure to hold the former president accountable for the myriadmisinformation campaignsconducted on his behalf by members of his campaign team from 2015 through 2018, tothe most recent nonsense, it’s apparent that Facebook’s somehow vested in keeping Trump on the social network.
Up front:Facebook’s allowing “Team Trump,” a Page directly associated with numerousleadership and conservative PACs run by Donald Trump, to remain up and advertising on the site as of today, 21 June.
According to a report fromFWIW:
The official Team Trump page is now owned by the former President’s political action committee, Save America. Save America is an entity directly controlled by Donald Trump, and Team Trump has not posted on Facebook since March 17th.
A quick peek at thead informationindicates the Page just purchased a little over $3K in ads for Ohio. We can also see that it’s spent more than $16 million since 2018.
Background:Facebook banned Trump from the platform indefinitely on 7 January for what the company deemed breaches of its terms of service.
Later, the company’s Oversight Board criticized the decision for its open-endedness and recommended a two year suspension instead – one that would lift in plenty of time for the 2024 election cycle.
Supposedly, Trump shouldn’t be allowed on the platform at all right now. And, per the company’s own terms of service, his associated accounts and any accounts attempting to access the platform on his behalf should be banned as well.
Quick take:This is a bunch of crap. Despite Trump’s ban, the former president can buy all the targeted ad space he wants on the world’s largest platform. The fact that Facebook sucks this badly at banning Trump makes it seem like this isn’t an accident.
The social network didn’tforgetabout the Trump page it’s collected over $16 million from.
When you consider howweird and creepy Trump and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s relationship is, it all adds up to something government regulators should probably take a deep dive into.
Story byTristan Greene
Tristan is a futurist covering human-centric artificial intelligence advances, quantum computing, STEM, physics, and space stuff. Pronouns:(show all)Tristan is a futurist covering human-centric artificial intelligence advances, quantum computing, STEM, physics, and space stuff. Pronouns: He/him
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