Former President Trump took to social media Wednesday afternoon to criticize Facebook and parent company Metta for banning him, after announcing that he would be reinstated on the platform following his two-year ban. will

“Facebook, which has lost billions of dollars in value since your favorite president, ‘deplatformed’ me, has just announced that they are restoring my account,” he wrote shortly after 4 p.m. “This should never happen again to a sitting president, or anyone else who doesn’t deserve to be punished!”

In the post, the former president also thanked his own platform, Truth Social, for “doing an incredible job” with him and his recent success.

Metta, which also owns and operates Instagram, announced in a blog post Wednesday that it would lift Trump’s suspension on both social media platforms “in the coming weeks.”

Trump says Facebook ‘needs us more than we need them’, as campaign calls for overhaul

Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, said the company had determined Trump was no longer a “serious threat to public safety” and had “tracks” for his return.

“To assess whether the serious threat to public safety existing in January 2021 has been substantially reduced, we have assessed the current environment in accordance with our crisis policy protocol, including the US 2022 midterms. Includes looking at the conduct of elections, and expert assessments of the current security environment,” Clegg wrote. “Our determination is that the threat has been substantially reduced, and therefore we must adhere to the two-year timeline that we set out. As such, we will continue to monitor Mr. Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks. will be reinstated. Doing so with new outposts to prevent repeat offences.”

The suspension was initially set to begin on January 6, 2021, after the Capitol uproar, when the platform said it would boot Trump “indefinitely” for his alleged involvement.

The decision sparked a backlash in the political arena and was the first time a sitting president was banned from Facebook. Trump was also banned from Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat at the time.

Clegg said Facebook reviewed the suspension later this year in June 2021, when it changed the ban to at least two years until January 2023.

Clegg said the guardrails include a stiff penalty for repeat offenses, should Trump violate the platforms’ terms of service or contribute to conversations that “do not violate our community standards but that do.” “helps with the threat on January 6,” Clegg said.

Flashback: Trump calls Facebook ban a ‘total disgrace’, says big tech companies ‘will have to pay a political price’

“In light of that [Trump’s] For violations, he now faces stiffer penalties for repeat offenses — penalties that will apply to other public figures whose accounts have been reinstated from civil unrest-related suspensions under our updated protocol.” Clegg continued on Wednesday.

Clegg said a repeat offense would result in a further ban of between one month and two years “depending on the severity of the offence”.

Clegg also acknowledged that Trump’s return to the platform would spark a backlash among his critics.

In an exclusive interview, Trump previously told Fox News Digital that Facebook had “lost $700 billion since being removed from my platform.”

“This is considered a big business mistake for them, Twitter and others,” he added.

On January 6, the House committee released its 814-page final report, recommending that Donald Trump be barred from running in 2024.

“If they take us back, that would help them a lot, and that’s fine with me,” Trump said earlier this month. “But they need us more than they need us.”

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital that Trump relied heavily on Facebook ad sales during his successful 2016 campaign when he defeated Hillary Clinton.

Trump spent $44 million between June and November 2016, Cheung said, citing about 6 million different versions of ads Trump ran.