Former US President Donald Trump may have been banned on Facebook but his presence remains. Politico on Monday, June 21, US time, reported that Trump’s fundraising arm is active and advertising again on the platform. 

The Save America Joint Fundraising Committee’s Facebook page Team Trump started running ads late last week, spending $3,506 on campaigns promoting a Cleveland rally, and calls for donations. The fundraising committee is a joint venture between Trump’s Save America leadership political action committee (PAC) and his Make America Great Again PAC.

Another ad attacked President Joe Biden, calling “Sleepy Joe” as “nothing more than a washed-up career politician” – the type of insult that users would usually see on the former president’s main social pages when they were still active.  An accompanying photo for the ad said “We need to stop Kamala and Joe Biden.”  

Facebook earlier this month announced its decision to suspend Trump until 2023, following recommendations from its Oversight Board for a “proportionate response,” which also said that it was wrong for the ban to be indefinite. 

While the amount that the Trump fundraising committee spent last week is small relative to its overall political ad spend of $16 million, what this action shows is that Trump is able to circumvent the platform’s current enforcement of the ban. With this apparent loophole, Trump is likely able to continue promoting the same causes he did with his main page. 

In a statement to Politico, Facebook’s policy communications manager Andy Stone said “Groups affiliated with the former president are not barred from posting on Facebook so long as they are not posting in his voice.” 

In an Axios report, Katie Harbath, a fellow at US think tank Bipartisan Policy Center and Facebook’s former public policy director said it’s “a clear gap/loophole in the policy.” She said that Facebook and Twitter need to be more detailed about what it means when a politician is de-platformed and must take into account the other social media entities related to a politician that should also get banned. – Rappler.com