Trump says tech titans are not ‘immune’ from his class-action lawsuit
Big Tech has the power to censor people’s speech in violation of the Constitution, former President Donald Trump said Sunday, but Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are not “immune” from the class-action lawsuit he filed against them last week.
“They’re taking away your freedom of speech. They are taking away your right to speak. They’re taking away everything. And they get powers. They have a Section 230, it’s called, and that gives them immunity. That gives them protection,” Trump said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“They’re immune from so many different things. But they’re not immune from this lawsuit, because what they have done is such a violation of the Constitution, a violation like we have never seen before. … They take me down. They take all conservative voices down, or most of them,” the former commander-in-chief said.
“It’s a disgrace,” he said.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube banned him from their sites before he left office in January over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Trump announced the filing of the lawsuit Wednesday at a news conference at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., saying he wanted to end the “illegal and shameful censorship of the American people.”
In the suit that seeks unspecified damages, Trump wants the federal judges to overturn Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional.
He says Section 230, which shields the Silicon Valley titans from content they publish on their websites, amounts to a government subsidy and that makes them vulnerable to lawsuits because the private companies are acting as agents of the government.
Another reason is their work, Trump said, with the Democratic Party.
“They work with Democrats within government and, frankly, outside of government. They work with the Democrats. It’s a Democrat machine. It should be a campaign contribution, the largest ever made,” he said on Fox News.
