Bill Gates says Trump should be allowed to return to social media

Bill Gates has had his say on whether Trump should be allowed to get his social media back.

Twitter cut the former president off from some 88 million followers after the deadly riot on Jan. 6, when a group of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol while Congress was certifying President Biden’s victory, leaving five people, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer, dead. At the time, Twitter said that Trump’s tweets posed “the risk of further incitement of violence.”

Facebook, Snapchat and Reddit also suspended Trump’s online presence indefinitely following the attack.

Now Gates says that social media companies should let President Trump back on their platforms, despite his “corrosive” election fraud claims. 

Gates, asked during an interview with CNBC on Thursday, February 18, whether he would let Trump back on social media if he were a member of Facebook’s oversight board, he replied;. 

“I think at some point he probably will be allowed back on and probably should be allowed back on,” the billionaire philanthropist said.

Gates suggested that if social media companies allow Trump to return, they could put a warning label on any false statements he makes.

“It’s weird when you’re, you know, saying that the election was stolen without any facts there. And how corrosive that is,” Gates said. 

“But I’ll bet they’ll find a way to let him back on.”

House Democrats, joined by 10 Republicans, impeached Trump on Jan. 13. The Senate voted 57-43 in favor of the impeachment count, ten short of the 67 needed to convict.

“You know in a way … people’s interest in what he says may go down quite a bit,” Gates added. “That’ll be interesting to watch.”