Federal judge dismisses Trump’s Twitter lawsuit

A federal judge in San Francisco has shut down Donald Trump’s crusade against Twitter, ruling Friday that the two-time impeached former president’s claim that the social media giant violated First Amendment rights are essentially BS.

In a 17-page order issued Friday, U.S. District Judge James Donato upheld the company’s January 2021 decision to fire the former chairman from his duties to prevent him from further agitating. Supporters vehemently oppose the 2020 election results. Therefore, Twitter is under no obligation to allow Trump to return to the platform.

Last year, Trump sued Twitter after he was permanently suspended from tweeting for violating the app’s rules about “glorifying violence” with tweets seen by many as fanning the flames shortly after. January 6th deadly riot in the Capitol. After starting his own Twitter clone, Truth Social, in an interview, Trump said in an interview that he would not return to Twitter even if the ban was lifted by the upcoming owner of the site. Elon Musk.

“I’m disappointed by the way I’ve been treated by Twitter,” Trump told CNBC. “I’m not going back to Twitter.”

In debunking Trump’s lawsuit, which was filed with the Conservative Alliance of America and five individual users including anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists Naomi Wolf and Wayne Allyn Root, Donato dismantled each one in turn. opinion of the former commander-in-chief.

“The plaintiff’s main claim is that the respondent has a ‘censor[ed]The ‘plaintiff’ Twitter accounts violate their First Amendment rights to free speech under the United States Constitution,” Donato wrote in the order. “The plaintiffs did not start from a strong position.”

Simply put, the First Amendment “applies only to cases of government restriction of speech, not to private companies that are alleged to be restrained,” the order explains, agreeing to The Times notes that Twitter is “a private company”. The revised complaint filed by Trump “merely lays out a barrage of allegations that certain Democrats in Congress want Mr Trump and ‘the views he espouses,’ to be banned from Twitter.” The order continued, “because such “content and views” are “contrary to the preferred views of those legislators.”

But even as some lawmakers, such as Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) spoke out against Trump’s crude and potentially dangerous online behavior, and subsequently Sen. Kamala Harris called on Twitter to suspend Trump’s account, Donato pointed out that state officials are “completely free to express opinions without being seen as the official voice of the ‘State.’ Otherwise there can be no government in our republic with elected representatives. ”

Donato ruled that Trump’s position fell “missing the mark,” even giving him “every benefit of the doubt.” Furthermore, Donato writes, the case quotes cited by Trump’s attorneys undercut their own arguments.

In his original complaint, Trump also claimed that Section 230, the law that protects online platforms like Twitter from being sued over user-posted content, is unconstitutional. As president, Trump launched an all-out attack on Section 230 in an effort to combat Twitter’s alleged “leftist bias”. Trump’s account had nearly 90 million followers before the ban.

“Trump’s attacks on Section 230 follow a familiar pattern: they always seem to follow a little bit of the perception of social media companies,” said the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. Non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation said in December 2020.

In his lawsuit, Trump claims to have “examples of Democratic lawmakers threatening new regulations, disrupting antitrust, and removing Section 230 immunity for Defendants and media platforms.” other societies if Twitter does not moderate views and content with which these Members of Congress disagree.” However, Donato wrote on Friday, “The actual quotes do not match that invoice.”

“The plaintiffs only made vague allegations and speculated that”[u]information and belief, defendants will not apply to claimants or presumptive members of a similar position but to Section 230(c) intentional immunity,” the ruling stated. “Why this might be reasonable has not been explained. The Court refuses to accept such speculative and conclusive allegations as the basis for a claim for adjudication. “

Donato also rejected Trump’s attempt to hold Twitter accountable for allegedly violating the Florida Fraud and Unfair Trade Practices Act. But even though Trump lives in Florida, he and others have long agreed, “under Twitter’s Terms of Service (TOS), that California law will govern all disputes arising between Twitter and users.” its use,” wrote Donato, adding that “There is no doubt that California has a substantial relationship to this case, ‘thanks to Twitter’s ‘primary place of business’ which is San Francisco.

“Although this is sufficient to refute the third claim, some additional observations are helpful,” the ruling continued. “… TOS explicitly states that Twitter may suspend or terminate accounts ‘at any time for any reason or not.’ It also says that Twitter may remove or refuse to distribute any content. There is nothing confusing or misleading about these terms, and the plaintiffs’ suggestion that Twitter may have applied them inconsistently… or by order of the government, does not change that.” .

The fourth lawsuit, under the so-called Florida Social Media Censorship Act, was also dismissed because Trump’s Twitter account was closed by the time the law went into effect in July 2021. Despite the fact that a federal judge has barred Florida from enforcing Donato writes, a move the state is currently appealing, “It is therefore unclear what plaintiff alleges is the applicability of statute to the case of surname.”

Trump, who has lost dozens of lawsuits in an attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, will be allowed to reapply. However, Donato said, under his orders, he is prohibited from adding any new requests.