Donald Trump sues Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and Pichai, claiming the companies have violated his First Amendment rights
Taking on Big Tech ‘censorship’ can be a winning argument even if it loses in court. Mat Smith / Engadget : The Morning After: Trump announces lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube BBC : Trump sues Twitter, Google and Facebook alleging ‘censorship’ Mark Sullivan / Fast Company : Donald Trump's social media lawsuit is DOA, a performance for the base US District CourtFlorida : Donald J Trump v. Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg US District Court Florida : Donald J Trump v. Twitter and Jack Dorsey US District Court Florida : Donald J Trump v. YouTube and Sundar Pichai Tweets: Nick Corasaniti / @nytnickc : And there it is: Trump fundraising appeal off his lawsuit already out https://twitter.com/... Brad Heath / @bradheath : Trump's Facebook lawsuit is filed in federal court in Florida. Facebook's terms of service requires that “any claim, cause of action, or dispute you have against us” be filed in federal court in northern California or San Mateo County state court. Ari Cohn / @aricohn : This is even more stupid than I expected https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Adam Steinbaugh / @adamsteinbaugh : Donald Trump is suing Facebook for violating the First Amendment. Here's the complaint: https://www.dropbox.com/... Sam Stein / @samstein : How you know this is a unserious lawsuit: Trump is already fundraising off of it https://twitter.com/... Devlin Barrett / @devlinbarrett : When paragraph 3 of your lawsuit declares Facebook is the government https://twitter.com/... Ben Jacobs / @bencjacobs : Assuming the lawsuit advances (which is a big if), Trump will have to give sworn testimony about January 6 https://twitter.com/... Will Oremus / @willoremus : But here's the hypocrisy: As @ericgoldman points out, the U.S. leader who has exerted the most state pressure on social media platforms' content moderation decisions is... Donald J. Trump. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Steve Vladeck / @steve_vladeck : The First Amendment does *not* apply to non-governmental actors. Full stop. https://twitter.com/... Laurence Tribe / @tribelaw : Trump has the First Amendment argument backwards. Facebook and Twitter themselves have a First Amendment right to decide what speech their platforms amplify — a right that includes excluding speakers who incite violence, as Trump has done. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Jay Willis / @jaywillis : Obviously Trump's lawsuit against Facebook and Twitter for censoring his posts is dumb and frivolous, which you can conclude after reading the entire 44-page complaint or just after checking how many of his Very Serious Lawyers use their AOL email accounts https://www.dropbox.com/... https://twitter.com/... Barb McQuade / @barbmcquade : @TimOBrien Trump lawyers know they will never need to produce any discovery because the case will be dismissed before an answer is filed. This lawsuit can only be about distraction and fundraising because it is not about the law. S.V. Dáte / @svdate : Trump claims he is filing a “class-action” lawsuit against social media companies for throwing him off their platforms. What, exactly, is the class? Presidents who lost re-election and then tried to overthrow American democracy to remain in power? That is a class of one. https://twitter.com/... Bradley P. Moss / @bradmossesq : One, HAHAHA Two, no. Three, if it was, DOJ would have to intervene and I'm sure that's totally what Trump wants. Four, if Facebook/Twitter were actual state actors, don't you think the White House Counsel would have told Trump that and advised him how to control them? https://twitter.com/... Kwame Brown V. Board / @arguendiot : this is trump's lawyer https://twitter.com/... Terrence K. Williams / @w_terrence : President Trump is suing Facebook and Twitter! What they did to him and what they have been doing to all of us is flat out unfair! Class Action Lawsuit. WE DESERVE JUSTICE! FOLLOW ME ON the new Free Speech App GETTR! It's better than Twitter Follow 👉 https://www.gettr.com/... https://twitter.com/... Michael Marshall Smith / @ememess : I, for one, am sure that Trump's frivolous lawsuits are definitely not a textbook case of him trying to distract everybody from something else... like the very non-frivolous lawsuits against his own company. https://twitter.com/... Phillip M Jackson / @jolly_jack : Twitter's TOS (which you agree to when you sign up) literally says “We may suspend or terminate your account or cease providing you with all or part of the Services at any time for any or no reason, including, but not limited to [reasons listed]” https://www.bbc.co.uk/... Akiva Cohen / @akivamcohen : That's two guys with “@aol.com” addresses for their professional email, a 13-lawyer firm that does personal injury work and insurance litigation, with lead counsel whose specialty is insurance claims and criminal defense (Matthew Baldwin), and a Greenwich CT firm whose named guys Frank Luntz / @frankluntz : Trump's social media lawsuits follow the same playbook as his Election Defense Fund, which netted $250 million in donations to (unsuccessfully) overturn the 2020 election. https://twitter.com/... Steve Vladeck / @steve_vladeck : Don't be taken in by the “what if it does” retort. The “state action” doctrine is about as firmly embedded a principle of constitutional law as there is. To overturn it would have incredibly broad consequences — many of which the current Supreme Court would be loath to embrace. Jan Wolfe / @jannwolfe : Trump found not one but 8 lawyers willing to put their names on lawsuits alleging that private companies violated the First Amendment, which applies to government entities. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Arieh Kovler / @ariehkovler : Surprisingly, a big focus of this Trump class action is Covid. Trump et al are suing Facebook for adding health warnings to Covid disinformation. https://twitter.com/... Adam Kinzinger / @adamkinzinger : Just a sad, little man. https://twitter.com/... Tim O'Brien / @timobrien : So Trump sued the techies and chose FL as his venue. But: 1) Section 230 protects social platforms from lawsuits alleging unfair removal of posts or accounts 2) A FL law prohibiting such suspensions was recently blocked by a federal judge 3) Discovery https://www.bloomberg.com/... Sara A. Carter / @saracarterdc : #BREAKING: Trump files lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google Trump's targets include Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google Sundar Pichai. Good... it's time... https://saraacarter.com/... @billmon27 : President Trump is fighting for ALL American's right to free speech https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Harry Litman / @harrylitman : 👇👇👇except before discovery a motion to dismiss will be granted because in lawyer speak Trump has failed to state a claim on which relief can be granted, since FB Twitter Google are not government actors. Just another PR stunt and abuse of the litigation system. https://twitter.com/... @j_remy_green : A casual reminder that under the Federal Rules, a motion to dismiss doesn't stay discovery. So Facebook can move to dismiss and schedule Trump's deposition while the motion is pending. https://twitter.com/... John W. Dean / @johnwdean : This should be a nationally televised deposition.... Please schedule it next week. Don't move to dismiss, which would be the normal move. Make him deal with the trap he created for himself. He will lose on the merits! https://twitter.com/... Teri Kanefield / @teri_kanefield : I suspect this nonsense lawsuit is to keep everyone from talking about the fact that the Trump Organization has been indicted. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Shauna / @goldengateblond : Lumbering Toddler Super Mad No One Wants to Hear Him Screech https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... CynthiaMcClellanWard / @cward40mc : Nobody in the history of this country has ever, more effusively, more repetitively, or to a larger worldwide audience, abused the American right to free speech, the right to spread lies, or influence violence and hate...than DJTrump. https://twitter.com/... Bobby / @bobbywilson1004 : Feel as you may about Trump, but him being banned on the top 3 social media platforms is just plain out wrong.... I hope he wins the lawsuit & takes 100's of millions of dollars from all 3 CEOs. I haven't been on Facebook in 5 years.... Fuck Zuckerberg & his algorithms! https://twitter.com/... Lev Parnas / @levparnas : Trump doesn't expect to win, it's just another way to take in more money from his cult members. Grifters gonna grift! https://twitter.com/... Outspoken / @out5p0ken : MAGA doesn't know this. It's all about the grift — send me money to sue Facebook and twitter. https://twitter.com/... Michael Grant / @michaelgrantbks : This'll be fun. The orange loser who doesn't pay his lawyers and hires from the bottom of the barrel, vs. every major law firm in the United States backed by all the money in the world. https://twitter.com/... @tonygoldmark : remember when this guy claimed to be against regulating corporations? now he's trying to sue them for allegedly violating some “corporations aren't ever allowed to censor their own content or be biased against anything” law that has never existed https://twitter.com/... Joyce Carol Oates / @joycecaroloates : (how could a lawyer seriously take on this case? T***p himself had tried to find a way to censor SNL for lampooning him.) https://twitter.com/... Kendall Youens / @kendallybrown : The website where Trump's team said people could join Trump's class action lawsuit against social media companies instead just redirects to the “America First Policy Institute” website. The site only allows people to donate & join their email list. It's always just a grift. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Brooke Binkowski / @brooklynmarie : I thought he didn't care and was making his own social networks or whatever lol https://twitter.com/... @lindaholmes : I feel like if you can't articulate what the legal basis for a lawsuit would be, reporting that someone plans to file it (as a class action??) is premature. https://twitter.com/... Erick Fernandez / @erickfernandez : This is part of the culture war. He'll announce it to get media attention, rile up some of his idiot base and won't follow through because he won't want to pay his lawyers and go through the discovery process. https://twitter.com/... Keith Olbermann / @keitholbermann : This is the dumbest thing Trump has ever done. It's wonderful. I remind you from personal experience that when you sue somebody you have to give a multi-day deposition on anything relevant to the topic...in this case, like your role inspiring the 1/6 Coup https://apnews.com/... Katie S. Phang / @katiephang : These lawsuits were DOA. https://apnews.com/... @tortmuseum : Irresistible force, meet immovable object: Trump, banned from Facebook and Twitter, sues, claiming censorship and “shadow-banning.” The companies are protected by sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields them from liability. Stay tuned... https://apnews.com/... Joe Walsh / @walshfreedom : Remember: His supporters tell me every single day they don't care about the truth. Not one bit. They only care that he fights. That's it. https://twitter.com/... @morningconsult : According to our June poll, a slim majority of voters support Facebook's two-year suspension of Trump. https://morningconsult.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Bradley P. Moss / @bradmossesq : Why Trump just wants a PR and fundraising moment, not a real lawsuit. 1) possibility of sworn depositions and discovery involving him and his closest aides/family 2) depending on claims alleged, potential anti-SLAPP damages in counterclaims 3) he'll almost certainly lose Matt Blaze / @mattblaze : It appears that the Trump legal team's mastery of election law is matched only by their grasp of first amendment law. https://twitter.com/... Barb McQuade / @barbmcquade : “Congress” shall make no law ... Trump and his lawyers need to read the first line of the First Amendment. His lawsuit complaining of censorship against private social media companies and their leaders is going nowhere. https://www.cnbc.com/... Matthew Feeney / @m_feeney : This is crazy. Without #Section230 Trump's Twitter and Facebook accounts wouldn't have lasted five minutes! https://twitter.com/... SchemeToDefraudHat / @popehat : To understand the legal ethos and moral and political character of the American populist right, imagine if the dudebro at the gym sued Apple because girls he wants to hit on are wearing Airpods Dylan Byers / @dylanbyers : How much money do we think Trump and downballot GOP can raise off a threat to sue tech CEOs that will probably never materialize because a) he won't follow through for fear of discovery b) it will be dismissed by the courts? Geoff Bennett / @geoffrbennett : Trump's effort to sue Facebook, Twitter and Google is doomed to fail, reports @PeteWilliamsNBC. Judges have consistently ruled that social media platforms are private entities. The First Amendment is a check on government power, not on the authority of private entities. Kevin Collier / @kevincollier : This is the only way to report on today's lawsuit. It's a publicity stunt, not a real legal threat. Framing it as such is misleading to readers. https://twitter.com/... Tim O'Brien / @timobrien : Discovery will be a joyride for Facebook, Twitter and Google's lawyers in this one. They can vet his Jan. 6 actions and anything he did before the insurrection that helped incite it. Go ahead, Trump - sue. Don't just say you “expect to announce” a suit. Do it. https://twitter.com/... Kwame Brown V. Board / @arguendiot : one thing you want in a class action is for your lead class representative to be the most sui generis person on the planet. https://twitter.com/... @pwnallthethings : Occurs to me that if twitter were a state actor and suing them over banning his own account while in office, then this really is, unironically, the president in his personal capacity suing himself in his official capacity. @pwnallthethings : Does the federal vacancies reform act apply to firing jack and then moving zuckerberg horizontally need some experts to weigh in Meridith McGraw / @meridithmcgraw : Trump: “We are going to look so closely and make sure that the liability protections [tech companies] have under Section 230 is at a very minimum changed and at a maximum taken away.” @pwnallthethings : If the president acting in his official capacity chooses in any given instant not to tweet, does that decision infringe on the first amendment rights of himself acting in his individual capacity? So many new questions this lawsuit raises
The claims invert a prior First Amendment dispute in which the Knight First Amendment Institute challenged Trump's blocking of Twitter users as government suppression of dissent. Related coverage characterizes the new cases as likely legally doomed but politically useful, making their public-pressure function central to the story.
First-order effects
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, along with Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai, must respond to parallel federal lawsuits alleging First Amendment violations.
Trump gains a formal vehicle for framing platform moderation as censorship, even as related coverage casts the suits as PR and fundraising tools.
Second-order effects
The coordinated filings intensify pressure on the three platforms to defend moderation decisions in public as well as in court, keeping their policies tied to the censorship narrative.
Congress and advocacy groups face another high-profile test of whether platform-content disputes should be addressed through litigation or changes to social-media policy.
Third-order effects
If political figures continue using litigation to contest moderation, platform governance will be shaped increasingly by public legal campaigns even where the underlying constitutional claims face weak prospects.
The dispute points to a durable conflict over whether major distribution platforms should be treated as private services with editorial discretion or as infrastructure subject to distinct obligations.
The trend: Content-moderation fights are moving from platform policy disputes into coordinated legal and political campaigns over the responsibilities of distribution platforms.
Trump's Facebook lawsuit is filed in federal court in Florida. Facebook's terms of service requires that “any claim, cause of action, or dispute you have against us” be filed in federal court in northern California or San Mateo County state court.
Trump has the First Amendment argument backwards. Facebook and Twitter themselves have a First Amendment right to decide what speech their platforms amplify — a right that includes excluding speakers who incite violence, as Trump has done. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Obviously Trump's lawsuit against Facebook and Twitter for censoring his posts is dumb and frivolous, which you can conclude after reading the entire 44-page complaint or just after checking how many of his Very Serious Lawyers use their AOL email accounts https://www.dropbox.com…
@TimOBrien Trump lawyers know they will never need to produce any discovery because the case will be dismissed before an answer is filed. This lawsuit can only be about distraction and fundraising because it is not about the law.
Trump claims he is filing a “class-action” lawsuit against social media companies for throwing him off their platforms. What, exactly, is the class? Presidents who lost re-election and then tried to overthrow American democracy to remain in power? That is a class of one. https://…
👇👇👇except before discovery a motion to dismiss will be granted because in lawyer speak Trump has failed to state a claim on which relief can be granted, since FB Twitter Google are not government actors. Just another PR stunt and abuse of the litigation system. https://twitter.co…
One, HAHAHA Two, no. Three, if it was, DOJ would have to intervene and I'm sure that's totally what Trump wants. Four, if Facebook/Twitter were actual state actors, don't you think the White House Counsel would have told Trump that and advised him how to control them? https://twi…
So Trump sued the techies and chose FL as his venue. But: 1) Section 230 protects social platforms from lawsuits alleging unfair removal of posts or accounts 2) A FL law prohibiting such suspensions was recently blocked by a federal judge 3) Discovery https://www.bloomberg.com/..…
President Trump is suing Facebook and Twitter! What they did to him and what they have been doing to all of us is flat out unfair! Class Action Lawsuit. WE DESERVE JUSTICE! FOLLOW ME ON the new Free Speech App GETTR! It's better than Twitter Follow 👉 https://www.gettr.com/... htt…
I, for one, am sure that Trump's frivolous lawsuits are definitely not a textbook case of him trying to distract everybody from something else... like the very non-frivolous lawsuits against his own company. https://twitter.com/...
Twitter's TOS (which you agree to when you sign up) literally says “We may suspend or terminate your account or cease providing you with all or part of the Services at any time for any or no reason, including, but not limited to [reasons listed]” https://www.bbc.co.uk/...
That's two guys with “@aol.com” addresses for their professional email, a 13-lawyer firm that does personal injury work and insurance litigation, with lead counsel whose specialty is insurance claims and criminal defense (Matthew Baldwin), and a Greenwich CT firm whose named guys
Trump's social media lawsuits follow the same playbook as his Election Defense Fund, which netted $250 million in donations to (unsuccessfully) overturn the 2020 election. https://twitter.com/...
Don't be taken in by the “what if it does” retort. The “state action” doctrine is about as firmly embedded a principle of constitutional law as there is. To overturn it would have incredibly broad consequences — many of which the current Supreme Court would be loath to embrace.
Trump found not one but 8 lawyers willing to put their names on lawsuits alleging that private companies violated the First Amendment, which applies to government entities. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Surprisingly, a big focus of this Trump class action is Covid. Trump et al are suing Facebook for adding health warnings to Covid disinformation. https://twitter.com/...
#BREAKING: Trump files lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google Trump's targets include Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google Sundar Pichai. Good... it's time... https://saraacarter.com/...
A casual reminder that under the Federal Rules, a motion to dismiss doesn't stay discovery. So Facebook can move to dismiss and schedule Trump's deposition while the motion is pending. https://twitter.com/...
This should be a nationally televised deposition.... Please schedule it next week. Don't move to dismiss, which would be the normal move. Make him deal with the trap he created for himself. He will lose on the merits! https://twitter.com/...
I suspect this nonsense lawsuit is to keep everyone from talking about the fact that the Trump Organization has been indicted. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Nobody in the history of this country has ever, more effusively, more repetitively, or to a larger worldwide audience, abused the American right to free speech, the right to spread lies, or influence violence and hate...than DJTrump. https://twitter.com/...
Feel as you may about Trump, but him being banned on the top 3 social media platforms is just plain out wrong.... I hope he wins the lawsuit & takes 100's of millions of dollars from all 3 CEOs. I haven't been on Facebook in 5 years.... Fuck Zuckerberg & his algorithms! https://t…
This'll be fun. The orange loser who doesn't pay his lawyers and hires from the bottom of the barrel, vs. every major law firm in the United States backed by all the money in the world. https://twitter.com/...
remember when this guy claimed to be against regulating corporations? now he's trying to sue them for allegedly violating some “corporations aren't ever allowed to censor their own content or be biased against anything” law that has never existed https://twitter.com/...
The website where Trump's team said people could join Trump's class action lawsuit against social media companies instead just redirects to the “America First Policy Institute” website. The site only allows people to donate & join their email list. It's always just a grift. https…
I feel like if you can't articulate what the legal basis for a lawsuit would be, reporting that someone plans to file it (as a class action??) is premature. https://twitter.com/...
This is part of the culture war. He'll announce it to get media attention, rile up some of his idiot base and won't follow through because he won't want to pay his lawyers and go through the discovery process. https://twitter.com/...
This is the dumbest thing Trump has ever done. It's wonderful. I remind you from personal experience that when you sue somebody you have to give a multi-day deposition on anything relevant to the topic...in this case, like your role inspiring the 1/6 Coup https://apnews.com/...
Irresistible force, meet immovable object: Trump, banned from Facebook and Twitter, sues, claiming censorship and “shadow-banning.” The companies are protected by sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields them from liability. Stay tuned... https://apnews.com/...
Remember: His supporters tell me every single day they don't care about the truth. Not one bit. They only care that he fights. That's it. https://twitter.com/...
According to our June poll, a slim majority of voters support Facebook's two-year suspension of Trump. https://morningconsult.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Why Trump just wants a PR and fundraising moment, not a real lawsuit. 1) possibility of sworn depositions and discovery involving him and his closest aides/family 2) depending on claims alleged, potential anti-SLAPP damages in counterclaims 3) he'll almost certainly lose
“Congress” shall make no law ... Trump and his lawyers need to read the first line of the First Amendment. His lawsuit complaining of censorship against private social media companies and their leaders is going nowhere. https://www.cnbc.com/...
To understand the legal ethos and moral and political character of the American populist right, imagine if the dudebro at the gym sued Apple because girls he wants to hit on are wearing Airpods
How much money do we think Trump and downballot GOP can raise off a threat to sue tech CEOs that will probably never materialize because a) he won't follow through for fear of discovery b) it will be dismissed by the courts?
Trump's effort to sue Facebook, Twitter and Google is doomed to fail, reports @PeteWilliamsNBC. Judges have consistently ruled that social media platforms are private entities. The First Amendment is a check on government power, not on the authority of private entities.
This is the only way to report on today's lawsuit. It's a publicity stunt, not a real legal threat. Framing it as such is misleading to readers. https://twitter.com/...
Discovery will be a joyride for Facebook, Twitter and Google's lawyers in this one. They can vet his Jan. 6 actions and anything he did before the insurrection that helped incite it. Go ahead, Trump - sue. Don't just say you “expect to announce” a suit. Do it. https://twitter.com…
Occurs to me that if twitter were a state actor and suing them over banning his own account while in office, then this really is, unironically, the president in his personal capacity suing himself in his official capacity.
Trump: “We are going to look so closely and make sure that the liability protections [tech companies] have under Section 230 is at a very minimum changed and at a maximum taken away.”
If the president acting in his official capacity chooses in any given instant not to tweet, does that decision infringe on the first amendment rights of himself acting in his individual capacity? So many new questions this lawsuit raises
That's not how the First Amendment works, though. You'd expect a former US president to know his constitution better than some rando European https://twitter.com/...
Trump is currently on stage explaining that Section 230 protects Facebook and Twitter from liability. Coming soon to a Rule 11 motion in the Southern District of Florida.
Trump claims that once tech companies got Section 230 protection, “they're not private companies anymore.” His lawsuit seems... fairly unrelated to the actual law? https://twitter.com/...
Notable that Trump's lawsuit against Facebook and Twitter, challenging their right to moderate content, comes the same day as the GOP unveils its Big Tech antitrust plan, which is actually mostly about restricting social media's right to moderate content. https://twitter.com/...
Facebook's legal counsel all furiously debating whether to submit a “lol you got us, we're state actors, and that's why DOJ should substitute for us in your stupid lawsuit, good luck” brief
Updates: — Trump said he's filing as the lead class rep in the lawsuit filed w the Southern District of FL — The filing seeks injunctive relief to allow “prompt restoration” of Trump's accounts, he says — He's also asking court to impose “punitive damages” on social media giants …