According to a CNBC report, the former U.S. President, Donald Trump, is suing Facebook, Google, and Twitter plus their CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey for supposedly violating his First Amendment right to free speech. While the companies allowed Trump to use the platforms while he was President, they became a lot less accommodating after his term ended.
Trump made the announcement at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, at 11 a.m. ET flanked by two people from the pro-Trump non-profit America First Policy Institute. The claims against the tech firms and their leaders will be filed with the federal court in Florida. Facebook has not yet provided comment on the legal action while Google and Twitter flat out declined to comment on the matter.
The issue of Trump being allowed to use social media platforms such as Twitter was a hot issue right through his presidency but it was not until the storming of the Capitol in his last weeks of office by his supporters that his place on social media became untenable. Twitter permanently banned him from its platform saying that he stoked up the violence at the Capitol while Facebook has a ban in place that will stop him from using its platform until January 2023, but this can be extended.
It will be interesting to see whether he gets anywhere with this legal action. While Trump has the rights laid out in the Constitution, he also had to agree to the various terms of service rules that each of the services has in place. The social media firms will likely point to infringements of their terms of service to justify their bans.