Donald Trump Files Lawsuit Against Twitter to Get His Account Back

Sophie Webster, Tech Times 02 October 2021, 04:10 pm

Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, has filed a lawsuit in Florida to force Twitter to give him back his account. He argued that the ban violates the First Amendment and the new social media law in Florida.

Donald Trump Wants His Twitter Back

Trump now wants a preliminary injunction of Twitter's ban. The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of Florida on Oct. 1. according to The Verge.

The former president said that Twitter is deliberately censoring him, and the members of Congress are coercing it. He also described the platform as a "major avenue of public discourse." Trump seeks to be reinstated on the platform.

The complaint also states that Twitter has a degree of power and control over the country's political discourse and that it is "dangerous to open democratic debate."

Trump used his Twitter account to announce his personal decisions and policy when he was the country's president. He was also open with his criticism of his political enemies and his opinion regarding the election results.

Also Read: Twitter Employee Deactivated Donald Trump's Account On His Last Day: We Have A New Internet Hero

Twitter banned Trump permanently in January after the deadly riot at the Capitol building on Jan. 6. Trump supporters did the riot in an attempt to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden's victory in last year's presidential election.

At first, the platform banned Trump's account for 12 hours due to "repeated and severe violations of their integrity policy" after posting tweets about how the election was stolen from him.

The platform eventually made the ban permanent on Jan. 8. Other social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Snapchat, banned Trump after the Capitol riots, according to PCMag.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Donald Trump resorted to using a WordPress blog as a substitute to social media accounts.

However, Facebook and Trump deleted posts that featured Donald Trump's blog due to his ban on the platform.

Florida's New Social Media Law

In the lawsuit, Trump argues that his Twitter account, which had 88 million followers, had become the source of news and information about government issues and affairs. It also became a virtual town hall where he openly posted his opinions and views.

Twitter also censored Trump during his presidency by labeling some of the tweets he posted as "misleading information." Twitter claimed the former president violated the platform's rules against "glorifying violence."

According to Engadget, Trump's lawsuit also cited the new social media law in Florida, which prohibits any social media platform from deplatforming politicians.

The social media law requires the companies to apply censorship, shadow banning standards, and deplatforming in a consistent manner.

Trump argues that Twitter was not consistent with its standards. In May, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the law, but a federal judge blocked it in July before it could even take effect.

The former president also stated that Twitter was not consistent with its rules regarding COVID-19 posts and that the platform had no problem when it came to the posts about the protests after George Floyd's death yet disapproved of the Jan. 6 event.

Trump also argued that the media claims that the Capitol riot was a source of COVID-19 infection, but the protest in the summer of 2020 was not.

Twitter has not commented about the lawsuit.