Trump Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, CEOs
Former US President Donald Trump has announced a class action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, Google subsidiary YouTube and their CEOs
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th July, 2021) Former US President Donald Trump has announced a class action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, Google subsidiary YouTube and their CEOs.
"Today, in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I'm filing a major class action lawsuit against the big tech giants including Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as their CEOs Mark Zukerberg, Sundar Pichai, Jack Dorsey," Trump said during a news conference.
Trump added he demands an end to "silencing" and "blacklisting" in the United States, adding that both are "unconstitutional and un-American."
The plaintiffs' statements were expressed in three separate documents - the first concerning Facebook and Zukerberg, the second concerning Twitter and Dorsey and the third is against Youtube and Pichai.
The lawsuit says the status of the three tech giants "rises beyond that of a private company to that of a state actor" and is constrained by the First Amendment right to free speech in the censorship decisions it makes regarding their users.
"Plaintiff, a sitting President of the United States, was banned by the defendants, as were putative class members, using non-existent or broad, vague and ever-shifting standards," the lawsuit said.
Facebook and Twitter have maintained their bans on Trump are not censorship but were set up for public safety in response to the January 6 unrest at the US Capitol.
Trump signed an executive order in 2020 to reduce legal protections for social media companies from liability for the content that users post on their platforms. Current President Joe Biden canceled that executive order in May.