Former President Donald Trump took his feud with three massive tech companies(Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) to the court. The hundred-to-one shot legal actions are the recent escalation in Trump’s prolonged dispute with the social media platforms that he used plentifully during his presidency.
Donald Trump filed class action complaints in federal court in Florida, declaring the tech giants are censoring him and other conservatives. The suits need the court “to order an instantaneous halt to social media companies’ unlawful censorship of the American people.” Legal connoisseurs said the suits are likely doomed to lose, given existing criteria and legal protections.
Trump has been deferred from the platforms since January, when his followers fiercely attacked the Capitol building, attempting to obstruct Congress from endorsing Joe Biden’s presidential victory. The aforementioned companies cited suspicions that Trump would provoke further riots and have kept him clasped.
Read more: Facebook Oversight Board upheld the social networks suspension of Trump
Trump said at a news conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, “We’re demanding an end to the shadow banning, an end to the silencing and a stop to the blacklisting, expelling and canceling that you know so well.” Shortly after the news conference winded, Trump’s political forces started releasing fundraising messages that glorified the lawsuits in their requests for money.
The suit against Facebook and CEO Zuckerberg says Facebook functioned unconstitutionally when it removed Trump from the platform. Suits against Twitter and YouTube make similar allegations. All three ask the court to award indefinite losses, announce Section 230 unconstitutional and revive Trump’s accounts, along with those of several other plaintiffs who joined the lawsuits and have also had posts or accounts wiped out.
According to Twitter, the tweets that contributed to Mr. Trump’s ban for “glorification of violence” were from 8th January, two days after the clashes erupted in the nation’s capital. The riot followed his repeated baseless claims that the election was rigged in Joe Biden’s favor.
Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are all private organizations, and users must agree to their terms of service to use their products. Under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, social media platforms are allowed to manage their services by discarding posts that are indecent or transgress the services’ standards.
Source: BBC News
