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Donald Trump's Facebook presence: Almost 35 million accounts have subscribed to the account
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Donald Trump breaks his second most important social media channel after Twitter: Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that he would block the US President's private Facebook account "indefinitely, but at least for the next two weeks" - at least so until Trump's successor Joe Biden is in office.
During the same period, Trump will no longer be able to post on Instagram, which belongs to Facebook, it is said.
Both services had announced on Wednesday, in the wake of Trump's verbal storm on the Capitol in Washington DC, 24-hour locks.
Trump's channel has around 35 million subscribers on Facebook, and almost 25 million users follow the presidents on Instagram.
Mark Zuckerberg was often accused of being too lenient with Trump by critics of his company, but also within Facebook.
This involved, for example, false allegations and postings glorifying violence that the US president had distributed via his account.
Another context, says Zuckerberg
On Thursday the Facebook boss wrote that the “shocking events of the past 24 hours” had clearly shown “that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to ensure the peaceful and lawful transfer of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden, undermine. ”Trump's decision to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol has rightly worried people in the United States and around the world.
With the election results confirmed by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after the inauguration are peaceful and in accordance with established democratic norms, Zuckerberg writes.
Facebook had previously announced that it would actively search for and delete user content showing the storm on the Capitol.
In the past few years, Trump has been allowed to use Facebook, "because we believe that the public has the right to the broadest possible access to political speech, including controversial speech," Zuckerberg clarified.
"The current context is now fundamentally different, however, since it is about using our platform to call for a violent uprising against a democratically elected government." The risks that arise if the president continues to use his own platform at this stage let use are "simply too big".
Read more about how social media services deal with Donald Trump here.
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