Donald Trump sues social media giants

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Donald Trump used to be the golden goose for Twitter and Facebook. He had millions of followers on both platforms and generated enormous engagement with all of his posts. That worked well for the Trump brand and also worked well for the platforms that hosted him. All of that changed when Trump became President. His tone became more combative, and the way the social media companies policed his account changed accordingly. In the end – as we’re sure you all already know – he was banned from both platforms. He was banned from several smaller social media networks at around the same time.

Much has changed for Donald Trump since then. He’s no longer President of the United States of America, but his voice still carries weight with his former supporters – some of whom he stands accused of inciting to riot during the events of January 6^th at the nation’s Capitol. Trump probably expected to get his social media accounts back when he left office in February. That’s yet to happen. He’s banned from Facebook indefinitely and Twitter permanently. An attempt to set up a blog of his own failed miserably, and his promise to set up a new social media network has failed to materialize. Presumably bored of having nobody to talk to on the internet, Trump has now done something extraordinary. He’s decided to sue Facebook and Twitter, and he’s also suing Google for good measure.

The not-entirely-unexpected news was announced by Trump personally on Thursday, July 7th, from Trump’s golf course (where else?) in New Jersey. Aside from suing the companies, he’s also individually suing their CEOs in a class-action lawsuit that claims censorship and a violation of his freedom of speech. He also claims that he’s able to demonstrate a pattern of bias against both himself and his supporters and goes further by claiming there’s a relationship between the companies named in the lawsuit and the government and “government actors.”

Some of Trump’s lengthy statement didn’t appear to make sense. He claimed that “we” will make changes to Section 230, which is the part of the Communications Decency Act that outlines the responsibilities of social media companies in relation to what’s posted on the platforms by their users. He’s promised to “change” the content of the section at a minimum or “take it away” as a maximum. As a former President with no current political office, he does not have the power to do so.

Many of the words used in Trump’s statement will be familiar to anyone who spends time on social media, and Twitter in particular.

He spoke of “shadow bans,” “cancelling,” and “blacklisting.” There’s never been any evidence of the existence of “shadow bans” or “blacklists” operated by either Facebook or Twitter. “Cancelling,” on the other hand, is the act of multiple people (usually thousands) campaigning to have someone’s account removed from social media – usually without success. When bans are issued, there’s generally a specific reason for it.

Legal analysts who’ve commented on the suit, which has been filed in Florida, believe it has little prospect of success. It relies on the idea that all three companies are effectively arms of the federal government as opposed to being privately-owned individual companies. This is easily disprovable and may even get the case dismissed out of hand. It’s also unclear why the CEOs of the companies – including Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg – have been named individually in the suits. The legal action appears to be unfocused and will most likely be found to be so by a competent judge.