Former President Donald Trump filed lawsuits against Google (owner of YouTube), Facebook, and Twitter in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida – Miami Division.
“I stand before you this morning to announce a very important… development for our freedom and freedom of speech,” Trump declared from his New Jersey golf club. “In conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I’m filing as the lead class action representative [in] a major class-action lawsuit against the big tech giants including Facebook, Google, and Twitter, as well as their CEOs.”
The three platforms blocked Trump permanently after the Capitol Hill riot on January 6th.
Trump continued: “There is no better evidence that big tech is out of control than the fact that they banned the sitting president of the United States earlier this year. If they can do it to me they can do it to anyone.”
Trump points to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the lawsuits:
3. Twitter has increasingly engaged in impermissible censorship resulting from threatened legislative action, a misguided reliance upon Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, and willful participation in joint activity with federal actors. Defendant Twitter’s status thus rises beyond that of a private company to that of a state actor, and as such, Defendant is constrained by the First Amendment right to free speech in the censorship decisions it makes.4. Legislation passed twenty-five (25) years ago intended to protect minors from the transmission of obscene materials on the Internet, and to promote the growth and development of social media companies, has enabled Defendant Twitter to grow into a commercial giant that now censors (flags, shadow bans, etc.) and otherwise restricts with impunity the constitutionally protected free speech of the Plaintiff and Putative Class Members.5. The immediacy of Defendants’ threat to its Users’ and potentially every citizen’s right to free speech cannot be overstated. Defendants’ callous disregard of its Users’ constitutional rights is no better exemplified than in the matter currently before the Court.
Section 230 allows the “platforms to moderate their services by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services’ own standards, so long as they are acting in ‘good faith.'”
Section 230 also exempts the companies “from liability for the material that users post.”
Trump and other Republican conservatives insist the social media companies “have abused that protection and should lose their immunity.” They claim the companies consistently target conservatives and those with non-leftist views. Their evidence includes allowing tyrants and dictators like the Iranian regime to keep their accounts.
From Fox News:
“While the social media companies are officially private entities, in recent years they have ceased to be private with the enactment and their historical use of Section 230, which profoundly protects them from liability,” Trump said. “It is in effect a massive government subsidy, these companies have been co-opted, coerced and weaponized by government actors to become the enforcers of illegal, unconstitutional censorship.”Trump called social media companies “the de-facto censorship arm of the U.S. government.”He added that “this was especially clear during the pandemic,” citing policies against contradicting health experts and the fact those companies suppressed information alleging that the coronavirus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
America First Policy Institute (AFPI) will lead Trump’s lawsuit.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY