The key question about Donald Trump’s unbanning on Facebook is: who cares?
The former US president was once a major drawcard for followers on Facebook and Twitter. Before the January 6 insurrection, he was a guaranteed source of the kind of outrage that causes significant engagement — from fans as well as critics. His tens of millions of Maga followers were easily riled and social media provided the conduits for his hordes of right-wing election denialists to storm the US Capitol.
In the immediate aftermath of this chaos, Twitter and Facebook quite rightly banned the Orange One.
US lawmakers recently released their year-long investigation report, which concluded that Trump did try to organise the riot that led to his supporters screaming “hang Mike Pence” (the US vice-president at the time) and should be investigated by law enforcement agencies. Unlike our own Zondo report, which resulted in senior ANC politicians who were implicated in state capture being referred to our own National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), you can expect the Americans to act on this.
So why would Facebook unban Trump? (It’s pointless asking why new Twitter owner Elon Musk unbanned him because nothing the former richest person does makes any rational sense.)
Here is a former president who had shown an unethical, illegal disregard for human life or dignity (“just grab ’em by the p***y” was his advice on romance). The highest elected body in the US has recommended he be investigated for treason. Why would any social network want him on their platforms?
Simple. He makes them lots of money. Facebook is an advertising platform that makes money from user engagement. Nothing gets people frothing like the Florida Man. Even when he falls asleep mid-tweet. Covfefe.
Trump is a drawcard to social networks, whether the rational world likes it or not
Musk also reinstated white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who has joined Kanye West’s so-called presidential campaign as an adviser. Fuentes, a Holocaust denialist who once called Hitler “cool” and “awesome”, was spotted at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where the former president reportedly said of Fuentes: “He gets me.”
But within a day, after Fuentes hosted a Twitter Space in which he gushed about Hitler and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Twitter banned him again.
West, too, was quickly banned again after his antisemitic attacks. It seems that losing $2bn hasn’t hurt the rap star’s ability to continue proving his own lack of worth to humanity.
Trump is a drawcard to social networks, whether the rational world likes it or not. Facebook knows he’s going to generate lots of clicks and it needs that after the disaster of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s unsustainable plan to build a virtual reality world he’s calling the metaverse. Everyone else is calling it the dud that it is.
If getting rid of Trump is truly the aim, maybe Zuckerberg should put him in that delusional project where nobody else goes. A bit like Trump’s own unused platform, Truth Social, Zuck’s metaverse seems like the ideal place to send the unrepentant narcissist and election denialist. We’ll never hear from him again.
*Shapshak is editor-in-chief of Stuff.co.za and publisher of Scrolla.Africa
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