Trump Plans to Sue Facebook, Twitter and Google Over Alleged ‘Censorship’

UPDATED: Former U.S. president Donald Trump — evidently still furious about getting kicked off social media platforms over his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — said he plans to file a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google and the companies’ CEOs.

The lawsuit against the three companies and their chief execs — Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Sundar Pichai — will seek class-action status on behalf of other individuals who have been banned by the “corrupt regimes” of the tech companies that he claimed have engaged in “censorship,” according to Trump, speaking at a press conference Wednesday in Bedminster, N.J., which was livestreamed on right-leaning video platform Rumble.

Trump said he will be the lead plaintiff in the class-action suit. “From the very beginning of our nation, freedom of speech has always been understood as a bedrock of our liberty and our strength,” Trump said. “No one should have the power to take that right away.”

Trump alleged that actions by Facebook, Twitter and Google were “unconstitutional,” but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the U.S. Constitution actually says. The First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting free speech and does not apply to private companies.

At the press conference, one of Trump’s lawyers said the lawsuit will posit that Facebook, Twitter and Google are actually “government actors” and that they are therefore bound by the First Amendment’s prohibition against “abridging the freedom of speech.”

The lawsuit is being filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, according to Trump. The suit will demand that the internet companies restore Trump’s accounts promptly and will seek punitive damages against Facebook, Google and Twitter, the ex-president added.

It’s unclear whether Trump has a legal leg to stand on. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, internet companies have legal protections for content shared on their services and allows them to moderate posts and user accounts as they see fit. Meanwhile, a report from NYU researchers earlier this year found that platforms like Twitter and Facebook are not systematically biased against conservatives or right-wing viewpoints in their content moderation practices.

Trump, who is notoriously litigious, is filing the lawsuit with the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank led by Linda McMahon and Brooke Rollins (who were officials in the ex-president’s administration). The America First Policy Institute on Wednesday launched a new site, the Constitutional Litigation Partnership, to promote the lawsuit and encourage visitors to “share your story about Big Tech censorship.”

“America is under threat from ideologies that are eroding our founding principles. The American way of life, including federalism, free speech, and the rule of law, is being undermined and distorted by Big Government, Big Tech and Big Media,” the AFPI says on the new site.

Trump, the only U.S. president to have been impeached twice, was broadly deplatformed by internet companies after he encouraged and expressed support for rioters storming the Capitol building on Jan. 6 in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The attack left five people dead.

On Jan. 7, Facebook indefinitely froze Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts with Zuckerberg citing the risk of ongoing violence if the then-president were allowed to remain on the services. Last month, Facebook said Trump’s accounts on its platforms will be suspended until at least January 2023 and will only be reinstated “if conditions permit.” Twitter banned Trump permanently on Jan. 8 for the same reasons, and other internet services have taken similar actions.

After Trump’s exit from the White House, the real estate mogul and former TV reality-show host launched a blog to share his commentary before it was shut down about a month ago. His personal website continues to host a “news” section with Trump’s statements on various topics, including his ongoing lies about voting fraud in the 2020 election.

At the press conference, Trump was noncommittal about whether he would resume his use of Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube if he’s allowed back on those platforms. He said he has no intention of settling the case out of court, and that he expects the litigation to continue past the 2024 elections.

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