Opinion | The cash grab at the center of Trump's looming return to Facebook

We knew it was likely coming, but it still feels unsettling that former President Donald Trump will soon regain access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts. Meta, the parent company of the two platforms, claims that “new guardrails” are in place to keep the former president in line. I have doubts about that, but I’m less concerned about the actual content that Trump posts or his campaign puts out in his name than the financial windfall he could reap.

As The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel argues, Facebook is no longer the culture-shaping juggernaut it once was. Both Trump and Facebook “appear to have lost the juice,” he writes. “Many people still support Trump, and many people still use Facebook products, but the shine is gone — and that matters.” Trump himself seemed to acknowledge the site’s recent decline. “FACEBOOK, which has lost Billions of Dollars in value since ‘deplatforming’ your favorite President, me, has just announced that they are reinstating my account,” he crowed on his TruthSocial platform. “Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!”