So much for Facebook’s efforts to become less political. Meta Platforms’ decision Wednesday to allow former President Donald Trump back onto both Facebook and Instagram threatens to undermine efforts Meta has made over the past two years to reduce the amount of political content people see in their Facebook feed. That promises to be bad for business—advertisers don’t want to be associated with a source of controversy—and it can’t help Meta in its efforts to woo people away from TikTok’s entertaining short videos. 

Of course, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in a no-win situation. If Meta kept Trump off, it would face complaints from the right that it was censoring a candidate for president, an argument that is admittedly hard to refute. As Global Affairs president Nick Clegg said in tonight’s blog post, “The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying—the good, the bad and the ugly.” Fair enough. The problem is, that’s not where Meta wants to be.