Donald Trump wants back on social media and it seems he’s starting with a bid to return to Facebook and Instagram.

The former US president has lodged an appeal against his Facebook ban with the tech giant’s Oversight Board – which makes final decisions about user bans.

According to USA Today, the board has confirmed Mr Trump has submitted a user statement, appealing against Facebook’s decision to boot him following the January riot at the US Capitol.

“We can confirm that a user statement has been received in the case before the Oversight Board concerning president Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts,” the statement said.

Mr Trump was ejected from almost all social media platforms in January.

Twitter, Mr Trump’s favourite social media outlet, was the first to move, making the landmark decision to permanently ban him while he was still US president. It came after weeks of flagging his account for spreading misinformation about issues such as the pandemic and the US election results.

The then president’s account was banned in January 2021 – a decision Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said was not made lightly.

Mr Dorsey released a series of tweets, explaining the unusual move.

Tweet from @jack

“I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here,” Mr Dorsey wrote on Twitter.

“After a clear warning we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter.”

After Twitter moved, other major social media platforms – including Facebook, Google’s YouTube and Snap – soon followed.

In January, the Facebook Oversight Board – an international team of 20 experts – released a statement advising it had accepted a case referral from Facebook to re-examine its decision to “indefinitely suspend” the former president. It has 90 days to rule on his appeal.

The social media giant had also sought policy recommendations on suspending political leaders after the case drove “intense global interest”.

“We believe that our members, working through a strong and independent oversight process, can ensure decisions are made in a more principled and transparent way than what Facebook can deliver alone,” the statement said.

The appeal submitted by Mr Trump is one of the recommended steps in the committee’s decision-making process.