Trump's Facebook ban could be lifted as soon as January if the decision is made to reinstate his account, Meta executive says

• Meta executive Nick Clegg says that Trump's Facebook ban could be lifted as soon as January.
• It comes down to whether the company decides to reinstate his two-year suspension.

Donald Trump could be returning to Facebook soon.

Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Facebook owner Meta, told news publication Semafor that the former president's ban on the platform could be lifted as soon as January, if the decision to reinstate his account is made once the suspension expires.

Meta announced in June 2021 that it was suspending Trump's account for two years, beginning at the time of the initial suspension on January 7 that year, a day after a mob of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol.

Clegg said Meta will base its decision on discussions with experts and whether there is a risk of "real world harm," Semafor reports. But Clegg said that the decision won't necessarily be based on "accuracy or sentiment about certain content," according to the report.

"If we think there is content on our platform which will lead to real-world harm — physical harm — then we feel we have a clear responsibility to act against it," Clegg said.

Since his Facebook suspension, Trump has continued to spread false claims of election fraud about the 2020 presidential election, including on his own platform, Truth Social.

While president, Trump had called Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to request changes to the Facebook Oversight Board, which was created to review company decisions and has the power to overrule them, The New Yorker reported last year.

Trump had 35 million followers on Facebook. His ban being lifted would be a benefit for any future campaigning, if he were to run for president again in 2024.

Facebook wasn't the only social platform to ban Trump. On January 8, 2021, Twitter announced that it had "permanently suspended" his account "due to the risk of further incitement of violence."

Trump launched his own conservative-leaning social platform, Truth Social, in February this year. But it's been plagued by trouble, including outages and glitches at launch and executive departures.