Trump Filing Class-Action Lawsuit Against Google, Facebook, Twitter for ‘Illegal, Shameful Censorship’
Former President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he was filing a class-action lawsuit against top executives at Facebook, Twitter, and Google saying their companies had become a “de facto censorship arm of the U.S. government.”
“Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey — three real nice guys,” Trump told attendees at a morning press conference, naming — respectively — the CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter. He said he was filing the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to end “illegal, shameful censorship of the American people.”
Facebook and Twitter removed Trump from their platforms in January, shortly before his presidential tenure ended. Trump’s ejection prompted backlash from conservatives, and prompted Florida to pass a law in May that prohibited the companies from banning political candidates in the future. However, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle — who sits on the District Court for the Northern District of Florida — issued an injunction last week to put a pause on that law.
The former president said he was moving under different legal authority to ask for “injunctive relief” from the right-leaning court, which includes five judges appointed by Trump — in addition to four appointed by former President George W. Bush and seven appointed by Democrats.
Trump used his press conference to introduce a number of social-media users who he said had been penalized by tech companies for publishing opinions that included commentary on Covid-19 and the wearing of face masks. He also whacked Twitter for “censoring” users who used the term “illegal alien,” singled Facebook out for suppressing posts that claimed Covid-19 originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and took aim at Google’s YouTube for deleting videos that “question the judgement of the World Health Organization,” which he called a “pipe organ for China.”
“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. “Our case will prove this censorship is unlawful, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s completely un-American.”
The lawsuit is being led by the right-leaning nonprofit America First Policy Institute (AFPI), where former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi serves as the top attorney for constitutional litigation.
Watch above via Fox News.
