Trump Announces Class-Action Suits Against Tech Giants Twitter, Facebook, Google
By: Sandy Fitzgerald
This is great news! A class action suit that has a very good chance at success. This is the very kind of public accommodations/ as a public utility kind of action Justice Thomas said he was interested in the court hearing. These companies have evolved over time far beyond the need for section 230 and they are virtual monopolies acting in concert with part of government to censor opposing views. It’s time to tell big tech social media platforms that it’s time they allow all legal on hate speech non violent speech on their forum or they don’t operate as a forum at all.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Trump Announces Class-Action Suits Against Tech Giants Twitter, Facebook, Google
Former President Donald Trump has announced class-action lawsuits against tech giants Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube parent company Google, over their "unlawful" censorship of him and other conservatives, after the social media giants banned him from posting in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
"We’re demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and canceling that you know so well," Trump said during an appearance at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, Wednesday morning.
"We will prove that this censorship is unlawful, it's unconstitutional, and it's completely un-American."
The actions are being supported by the America First Policy Institute, headed by former Trump officials Linda McMahon and Brooke Rollins, who introduced Trump at the announcement. Axios first reported AFPI's involvement.
Trump is banned from Twitter and will not be eligible to return to Facebook for two more years.
In his announcement, Trump said he is the lead class representative in the first suit , filed Wednesday morning in the Southern District of Florida, against YouTube and Pichai.
The Facebook suit also lists Trump as the lead plaintiff.
None of the three tech companies had any immediate comment in response to Trump's announcement.
Trump has been battling for years with the sites over free speech and censorship, even before his ban.
By using a class-action lawsuit, Trump is filing on behalf of a broad group of people that claim they have been censored because of political bias.
"We ask the court to impose punitive damages on these social media giants," said Trump. "We're going to hold Big Tech very accountable. This is the first of numerous other lawsuits."
Trump railed about what he called censorship of posts by him and others because of the coronavirus pandemic, including his posts about hydroxychloroquine and other treatments for COVID-19.
"Liberty is under increased threats and attacks by a lot of different sides," Trump said. "We are the majority side ... social media has given extraordinary power to a group of Big Tech giants that are working with government, the mainstream media, and a large segment of a political party to suppress the views of the American people and they've been very successful at that."
He further said that "thousands of people" want to join the lawsuit and called it the largest lawsuit of its kind, before introducing people who have complained about being banned from social media platforms.
Twitter and Facebook say the bans were enacted for safety reasons following the attack on the Capitol. In May, Facebook's independent Oversight Board backed the company's decision to suspend his account.
But even before Jan. 6, Trump took aim at Dorsey and Zuckerberg, along with Big Tech, signing an executive order meant to limit legal protections that shield social media companies from liability for the content users post on their platforms.
President Joe Biden revoked Trump's order in May.
Trump hinted at the lawsuit during a recent appearance on Newsmax, when he said that he was going to do "something about Big Tech" because "something harsh has to take place when they can censor conservative voices."
Last week, Trump’s team launched a new social media platform, named GETTR, and billed it as an alternative to Big Tech sites and says it's dedicated to "fighting cancel culture, promoting common sense, defending free speech, challenging social media monopolies, and creating a true marketplace of ideas.
Trump’s former spokesman, Jason Miller, is leading the platform.
The app went live on the Google and Apple app stores in mid-June. It's considered one of the highest-profile projects in conservative tech and social media platforms, and comes amid accusations that Big Tech tried to silence pro-Trump commentary, particularly after the major sites have kept the former president's ban in place after the Jan. 6 incidents at the Capitol.
GETTR has already had some issues, however. The site was briefly hacked upon its launch, and Miller said the problem was "detected and sealed in a matter of minutes and all the intruder was able to accomplish was to change a few user names."
However, TechCrunch reported Tuesday that hackers were able to use GETTR's API (application programming interface) and scrape email addresses for more than 85,000 users. They were also able to get hold of usernames, names, and birthdates.
Until Wednesday, Trump did not have a presence on the new app, even with Miller running the site and other figures from Trump's orbit, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Steve Bannon, having established profiles. It was not clear early in the day if he planned to announce that he will now have a platform on the site.
Trump's blog page, "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump," was removed from his website in early June and "will not be returning," Miller said .
Trump had used the page to share statements after social media sites like Twitter and Facebook banned him from their platforms earlier this year. The website still has a news page , however, where Trump's statements can be found, and followers can still sign up for alerts.
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He got away with violating the TOS's when POTUS but got away with it because he was the POTUS. Now that he is a mere citizen, the TOS applies to him just as it does you and I.
Moral of the story? Diaper Don never tires of losing...
What’s next on his agenda? Suing McDonalds for not serving him a Whopper?
With Trump? More likely suing McDonalds for refusing to sell him a bucket of chicken and a side of nachos.
And Ronny Jackson thinks Biden needs to take a cognitive test.
This from USA Today (bolding is mine):
Obviously the claim is being brought for show and to incite his base. If it gets as far as the SCOTUS without having already been laughed out of court, and should the SCOTUS not throw the claim out or refuse to hear it, I will consider that my greatest fears about a Trump-stacked court will have been realized. .
I recall reading reports about Trump and/or his organization not bothering to pay the costs for rallies, and that does fit in with his reputation as a real estate developer, not paying his trades, and not gettting the prior permission of musicians whose music he used at rallies. In Canada, where there is likelihood that a plaintiff bringing a court action might not be in a position to pay the court costs or costs of its winning opponents, the court will order that to bring the claim the plaintiff must pay anticipated court and defendants' costs UP FRONT to the court to cover them in the case that the plaintiff loses, expecially in the matter of a trivial matter, or unlikely to succeed. I don't know if that is the case in America but if it were, I think the defendants have every right to demand such up front payment into court.
2 things, this is purely a cash grab. Separating dipshits from their money is the only thing trump has ever, somehow, been good at.
Secondly if he does actually file this it’ll get tossed immediately. It doesn’t stand a chance for a multitude of reasons but number one is that these companies/people aren’t government agents and thus it is impossible for them to be in violation of the constitution.