Former President Donald Trump lashed out Friday after Facebook announced that it will continue to ban him from its platforms for the next two years.
Trump was booted from Facebook following “his praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol on January 6,” Facebook said in a statement Friday. Five people died in the violence at the Capitol, and more than 140 U.S. Capitol Police officers were injured. Trump was also banned from Twitter following the attack.
“Facebook’s ruling is an insult to the record-setting 75m people, plus many others, who voted for us in the 2020 Rigged Presidential Election,” Trump said in a statement on Friday. “They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win. Our Country can’t take this abuse anymore!”
In an additional statement, Trump alluded to a 2024 presidential run.
“Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife,” he said. “It will be all business!”
Though a Facebook oversight committee initially banned the former president indefinitely, Friday’s decision to suspend him for just two years could see Trump’s return to the social media platform just in time for the 2024 presidential election.
However, Facebook said Trump’s possible return is conditional.
“At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, said in a statement. “We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest. If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded.”
Should Trump commit “further violations” in the future, his accounts and pages could be permanently removed, according to Clegg.