Former US President Donald Trump is still banned by Facebook and Instagram, Facebook said after a wave of rumours that Trump was back on the platform.
“Nothing about the status of President Trump’s presence on our platform has changed. He remains indefinitely suspended”, Facebook's policy communications director Andy Stone tweeted.
Over the last couple of days, journalists have been reporting that Trump’s Facebook and Instagram pages appeared to be live again, showing Trump’s last posts dated 6 January.
The rumours came after a Facebook oversight board last month reviewed Trump’s indefinite ban and concluded that the social media platform didn’t have an actual policy in place for the issue to be reviewed, setting a deadline of six months to make one. The board also maintained the ban for the time being.
After the 6 January "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington in his support, which morphed into a riot that saw dozens breaking into the Capitol building, leaving five people dead, Trump was accused of "inciting an insurrection" and impeached by the US House of Representatives.
He was later acquitted by the US Senate. The 45th US president, who called on supporters to oppose Joe Biden's certification "peacefully" during the rally, denied any responsibility for the protests, saying that what he said was "totally appropriate".