ACLU Defends Meta Allowing Trump Back on Facebook: ‘Should Err on the Side of Allowing…Political Speech, Even When It Offends’

AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is facing criticism for its decision to allow former President Donald Trump back on their platforms. But they do have one prominent defender — and it’s one not normally expected to be allied with the ex-POTUS.

Trump’s accounts on most major social media platforms were suspended in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Elon Musk reinstated Trump’s Twitter account after buying the company late last year, and Trump’s campaign had sent a letter to Meta petitioning them to reverse his suspension on its platforms too.

On Wednesday, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, announced Trump’s accounts would be restored “in the coming weeks.”

“Americans should be able to hear from the people who want to lead the country,” Meta said in a statement to Mediaite. “We don’t want to stand in the way.” A longer statement on Meta’s website said the company had “put new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses,” but “[t]he public should be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed choices.”

Meta’s announcement drew condemnation from Trump’s critics on the left, with many expressing concern that he would once again use the platforms to spread conspiracy theories and incite violence among his millions of followers. For example, NAACP President Derrick Johnson described Meta allowing Trump back online “a prime example of putting profits above people’s safety.”

But the American Civil Liberties Union was among those defending the move as the right decision.

To be clear, the ACLU has been among Trump’s most pointed critics, expressing concerns about his “un-American and wrong-headed” and “unlawful and unconstitutional” proposals from his first presidential campaign, issuing this open letter to Trump at the very beginning of his 2016 presidential term:

But allowing Trump back on Facebook was “the right call,” said ACLU executive director Anthony Romero. “The biggest social media companies are central actors when it comes to our collective ability to speak — and hear the speech of others — online. They should err on the side of allowing a wide range of political speech, even when it offends.”

“Like it or not,” said Romero, “President Trump is one of the country’s leading political figures and the public has a strong interest in hearing his speech. Indeed, some of Trump’s most offensive social media posts ended up being critical evidence in lawsuits filed against him and his administration.”

Romero also expressed a desire for a wider variety of social media platforms, saying that “[i]n a healthier information ecosystem, the decisions of a single company would not carry such immense political significance, and we hope that new platforms will emerge to challenge the hegemony of the social media giants.”

Still, Trump has one major stumbling block before he can start posting Facebook Live videos and picking which Instagram filter best highlights his tangerine-hued visage: his agreement with his own social media company, Truth Social, which he launched after his excommunication from the other platforms. This agreement restricts how he is allowed to post on other accounts, and the interpretation of such language may end up getting argued in court. As Mediaite reported in November:

The agreement governing the proposed merger does set some parameters for how Trump would be allowed to use a rival social media platform, and yet another issue that could be part of a lawsuit by aggrieved shareholders if the planned merger goes through but the stock tanks.

Trump “is generally obligated to make any social media post on TruthSocial and may not make the same post on another social media site for 6 hours. Thereafter, he is free to post on any site to which he has access.” He is also “may make a post from a personal account related to political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the-vote efforts on any social media site at any time.”

In other words, if Trump tweets anything that he hasn’t already posted on Truth Social at least six hours in advance, it’s going to come down to the exact interpretation of what is considered “political messaging.”

This article has been updated with additional information.