Former President Donald Trump is now filing a lawsuit in Florida that is asking a federal judge to force Twitter to reinstate his account. In his Friday filing, the 45th President of the United States is arguing that being banned from Twitter is violating his First Amendment rights.
Trump’s attorneys are contending that Twitter is exercising “a degree of power of power and control over political discourse in this country that is immeasurable, historically unprecedented, and profoundly dangerous to open democratic debate.”
This filing is also pointing out that the “censorship and prior restraint” of Trump’s speech is violating “the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
“Coerced by members of the United States Congress, operating under an unconstitutional immunity granted by a permissive federal statute, and acting directly with federal officials, Defendant is censoring the Plaintiff, a former President of the United States,” the filing reads.
The filing actually goes on to quote defense attorney and legal scholar Alan Dershowitz when he says, “Plaintiff’s right to speak freely has been seriously compromised by….Twitter. Moreover, the rights of his audience to have access to his views have also been curtailed.”
This filing is also claiming that Twitter is only selectively enforcing their policies, noting that high-ranking members of the Taliban continue to have active accounts on this social media site.
“Over the weeks that followed, Twitter allowed the Taliban to tweet regularly about their military conquests and victories across Afghanistan. The Taliban’s Twitter account is active to this day,” the filing states.
Trump’s lawyers are also claiming that his Twitter ban is also violating the Stop Social Media Censorship Act – a social media law that had been signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last May.
This law states, “All Floridians treated unfairly by Big Tech platforms will have the right to sue companies that violate this law — and win monetary damages.” Additionally, social media companies are “prohibited from de-platforming Floridian political candidates” or face fines of $250,000 per day.
However, the law was blocked by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on June 30 – just a day prior to when it was set to go into effect.
“The legislation now at issue was an effort to rein in social-media providers deemed too large and too liberal,” Hinkle wrote in the 31-page order. “Balancing the exchange of ideas among private speakers is not a legitimate government interest.”
The DeSantis administration is now appealing the judge’s decision and they are waiting to see if the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will revise this injunction.
They banned President Trump two days after the January 6th Capitol Protest, and it was claimed by the social media company that Trump had incited violence by challenging the results of his reelection bid.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the micro-blogging platform said.
At the time President Trump was banned, he had more than 88 million Twitter followers.
Moreover, Trump has also been suspended from Facebook until at least early 2023.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said last March that this video-sharing platform was planning on lifting their suspension on Trump’s channel when they can determine that the “risk of incitement to violence” has been diminished. Alphabet, Inc. is the parent company of both Google and YouTube.
In July, Trump launched a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
“Today, in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I’m filing as the lead class action representative of a major class-action lawsuit against the Big Tech giants including Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as their CEOs,” Trump said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit.