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Former President Donald Trump is suing Google, Twitter and YouTube from Google, as well as their respective chief executives, in lawsuits denouncing “illegal censorship” of Americans.
Trump said Wednesday he would lead class action lawsuits against top executives Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai, as well as his Big Tech platforms.
“We are asking the U.S. District Court for the South Florida District to order the immediate arrest of the shameful illegal censorship of social media companies in the American people,” he said, adding that he also asked the court to restore their accounts and impose punitive damages.
“It will be a fundamental battle in defense of the First Amendment. And in the end, I’m sure we will achieve a historic victory for American freedom and, at the same time, freedom of expression, “Trump said.
Twitter banned Trump from its platform permanently after the Capitol Hill assault on January 6, citing repeated violations of its moderation policies and the risk it could use to incite violence.
Facebook has banned Trump for at least two years for similar reasons, while Google’s YouTube has suspended his account indefinitely.
The moves have deprived the former president of vital mouths that he used to compulsively convey to his tens of millions of followers, excoriating his enemies, praising his allies and repeating unfounded accusations of electoral fraud by his Democratic opponents during the 2020 elections. .
Throughout his presidency, Trump and many of his Republican allies argued that high-tech platforms were biased against conservatives, while left-wing critics of the platforms said they did not do enough to protect the discourses of ‘odi.
The legal effort announced Wednesday has the support of the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit agency dedicated to promoting Trump’s policies.
Complaints for each case allege that Democratic lawmakers “coerced” the respective platforms by publicly calling for a ban on the former president and others and threatening them with antitrust regulations and violations.
The lawsuits also allege that the platforms worked with “federal actors” to impose censorship, for example, by partnering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to “suppress conflicting medical opinions.”
The files show that social media violated the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression. They also seek the resolution that Article 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives technology platforms immunity from being sued for user-generated content, is unconstitutional.
Trump is named alongside a handful of other people as plaintiffs. The American Conservative Union is also named in the Twitter case.
The former president said he hoped the litigation would be a “very, very important change of game for our country” and “would go down as the biggest collective action ever filed, because thousands of people want to unite.”
However, some legal experts argued that the litigation was not correct, as according to the First Amendment, the platforms have the discretion to decide which speech they will host, while a person has no constitutional right to use their services.
“Trump has the exact wrong First Amendment argument,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. “The first amendment applies to government censorship or speech regulation. It does not prevent private sector companies from regulating the content of their platforms.”
Since the ban on social media, Trump has struggled to cultivate similar online influence elsewhere. In May, he launched his own blog site – From Donald J Trump’s Desk – only to close it less than a month later, apparently frustrated by the lack of readers. He is also exploring the creation of his own social media platform.
A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit. Facebook and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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