Jan. 29 (UPI) — Social media giant Meta has agreed to pay $25 million to settle censorship accusations made by President Donald Trump after Meta suspended his Facebook and Instagram accounts in 2021.
About $22 million of the settlement will help fund the Trump Presidential Library, which so far is a website operated by the National Archives but likely will have a physical site in the future, NBC News, CNN and Variety reported.
The remaining $3 million will pay legal fees and settlements with other plaintiffs in the case.
Meta officials do not admit to any wrongdoing in settling the matter, and Trump signed the settlement agreement Wednesday at the White House.
Meta officials suspended Trump’s accounts after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
Meta Platforms co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg a day later accused Trump of using “his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.”
Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts remained inaccessible until February 2023, and Zuckerberg has since acted to end any animosity Trump might have held against him.
Zuckerberg attended Trump’s Jan. 20 swearing-in ceremony and hosted a party honoring Trump’s presidency that same day.
Zuckerberg and other Meta officials also have revised the content-moderation policies for Facebook and Instagram, including ending the former fact-checking system in the United States.
Zuckerberg also donated to Trump’s inaugural fund and promoted Joel Kaplan, a Republican, to be Meta’s chief of global policy.
Trump’s temporary banishment from Facebook and Instagram partly led him to found the Truth Social site in February 2022.
Neither Trump nor Meta commented on the settlement agreement.
