Facebook has removed a video of former US President Donald Trump's interview with his daughter-in-law Lara Trump from the social media platform, as well as Instagram. Lara Trump published the letter she presumably received from a Facebook employee, which notified about the video's deletion over it featuring "President Trump [sic] speaking". The email also warned that any further content "posted in the voice of Donald Trump" will also be removed and the accounts posting them will face "additional limitations".
Lara Trump accompanied the screengrab of the email with a caption "...and just like that, we are one step closer to Orwell’s 1984".
Trump's daughter-in-law was not the only one to receive an email from a purported Facebook employee. Trump's son, Eric, published a screenshot of an email with similar contents. In his case, the message simply reminded the accounts associated with the former president that Donald Trump was banned from the platform and that all content posted on Facebook and Instagram "in [his] voice" will be removed and the accounts publishing it will be penalised.
"This guidance applies to all campaign accounts and Pages, including Team Trump, other campaign messaging vehicles on our platforms, and former surrogates", the email cited by Eric Trump said.
Facebook itself did not comment on the removal of the interview's video, which took place earlier today. An anonymous source confirmed the letters' authenticity to Fox News.
Trump Banned on Mainstream Social Media Platforms
The ex-POTUS was banned from many social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube and Discord following the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021. The social media defended their simultaneous decision to ban the president by claiming that Trump incited the Capitol violence and should not be allowed to have a platform. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that the risks of allowing Trump to speak through his social media account were "simply too great".
The US House's article of impeachment charged the president with incitement to insurrection, but the Senate acquitted the former president. The president himself denied all charges and condemned the social media giants for an attempt to "silence" him. Trump insisted that his speech at the "Stop the Steal" rally on 6 January never urged his supporters to storm the Congress building and condemned the actions of the rioters himself. However, the Democrats insisted that the actions of the mob were provoked by the former president's continuing unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. The social media themselves had been branding Trump's election-related posts as misleading for months even before the US courts rejected most of his voter fraud claims.