From its failure to hold the former president accountable for the myriad misinformation campaigns conducted on his behalf by members of his campaign team from 2015 through 2018, to the most recent nonsense, it’s apparent that Facebook’s somehow vested in keeping Trump on the social network. Up front: Facebook’s allowing “Team Trump,” a Page directly associated with numerous leadership and conservative PACs run by Donald Trump, to remain up and advertising on the site as of today, 21 June. According to a report from FWIW: A quick peek at the ad information indicates the Page just purchased a little over $3K in ads for Ohio. We can also see that it’s spent more than $16 million since 2018. Background: Facebook banned Trump from the platform indefinitely on 7 January for what the company deemed breaches of its terms of service. Later, the company’s Oversight Board criticized the decision for its open-endedness and recommended a two year suspension instead – one that would lift in plenty of time for the 2024 election cycle. Supposedly, Trump shouldn’t be allowed on the platform at all right now. And, per the company’s own terms of service, his associated accounts and any accounts attempting to access the platform on his behalf should be banned as well. Quick take: This is a bunch of crap. Despite Trump’s ban, the former president can buy all the targeted ad space he wants on the world’s largest platform. The fact that Facebook sucks this badly at banning Trump makes it seem like this isn’t an accident. The social network didn’t forget about the Trump page it’s collected over $16 million from. When you consider how weird and creepy Trump and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s relationship is, it all adds up to something government regulators should probably take a deep dive into.
