Clegg suggested that Trump’s posts to the social media platform on Jan. 6 as the U.S. Capitol was breached by protesters and rioters inflicted “harm” on others.
“It’s a pretty longstanding principle it goes right back to the mid-19th Century this idea that you’re free to do things, but not if that inflicts harm on others and that is a rule that we apply—doesn’t matter whether you are the Pope, the President of the United States, whether an ordinary user—you cannot use Facebook if you want to use Facebook in a way which leads to real world imminent harm, and we think it’s crystal clear in this case that is exactly what was happening on Jan. 6 in Washington D.C,” he explained.
“You have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt,” he remarked.
Earlier Jan. 6, Trump told a crowd on The Ellipse, approximately two miles from the Capitol, that people should go to the building, but do so “peacefully and patriotically.”
Clegg announced Trump’s two-year suspension on June 4, saying that when the two years elapse, Facebook plans to review with experts whether the “risk to public safety has receded.”
Trump has continued to pan Facebook and other Big Tech companies, accusing them of uneven moderation standards. Internal video footage and other evidence support the accusations.
During a speech to Republicans in North Carolina on Saturday, the former president called the decision to suspend him from the social media platform “so unfair,” alleging that the Big Tech company was silencing the voices of “a much more powerful and much larger group.”
“Our job is not to take the decisions with an eye to, you know, which side of the political aisle is going to agree or disagree more with us, but just to do so in a way that is fair, transparent, and proportionate,” Clegg said.
