Facebook says former President Trump will be suspended from its platform & Instagram at least until Jan. 7, 2023

Facebook announced Friday that former President Donald Trump would be suspended from its platform until at least January 7th, 2023 -- two years from when he was initially suspended.

Facebook said it will then assess the circumstances to see if he should be allowed back on. 

The company said in a post Friday that once the two years is up, it "will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded. We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest. If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded." 

In the post, written by Nick Clegg, the company's vice president for global affairs, also announced new rules for "enforcement protocols to be applied in exceptional cases such as this." 

The change comes in the wake of the unprecedented step the company took of indefinitely suspending Trump in January -- and the way its independent oversight board rebuked it for the arbitrary nature of that suspension.

In response to the @OversightBoard's ruling, Facebook is suspending Donald Trump’s accounts for 2 years, effective from the date of the initial suspension in January this year. At that time, we will assess the public safety risk and extend the restrictions if conditions require. https://t.co/23JTzX2pfx

— Nick Clegg (@nickclegg) June 4, 2021

When the suspension is eventually lifted, Mr Trump’s account will be subject to new enhanced penalties if he violates our policies, up to and including permanent removal of his accounts.

— Nick Clegg (@nickclegg) June 4, 2021

Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols we’re announcing today. pic.twitter.com/P6RF3ebvFn

— Nick Clegg (@nickclegg) June 4, 2021