Plane Flies Over Facebook HQ Protesting Trump's Account: Photos

MENLO PARK, CA — A plane flew over Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park on Tuesday afternoon calling for former President Donald Trump to be banned permanently from the social media platform.

The plane carried a banner reading KeepTrumpOffFacebook.com, a website created by the progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America and Accountable Tech.

In an announcement earlier this month, Facebook said it would ban Trump for at least two years for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, leaving open the possibility that Trump could be reinstated in early 2023 — in time for a potential 2024 campaign.

Facebook said in a statement that it would decide "whether the risk to public safety has receded" in two years.

Organizers hoped the plane would catch the attention of Facebook employees.

"Facebook employees are out of excuses for not making more noise about the platform's complicity in fomenting violence and extremism," Media Matters President and CEO Angelo Carusone said in a news release. "We will never stop reminding them that with Facebook's announcement of Trump's 'eventual reinstatement' instead of just permanently suspending him, Facebook is an accomplice in the extremism and violence that will surely follow."

Media Matters and Accountable Tech commissioned a full page ad in the New York Times earlier this month. And last week, Media Matters and 30 other nonprofit and advocacy groups ran an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the Mercury News.