Former President Trump today announced plans to file a class-action suit against Facebook, Google, Twitter and their respective CEOs for banning him from their platforms in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Trump says the suit, which will be filed in a Florida district court, will demand that the companies restore the former president's accounts, award him punitive damages, stop banning its users, and put an end to "shadow banning," or hiding certain people and terms from search results.
The First Amendment protects people from government censorship, but private companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter are largely free to police their own platforms and ban those who violate their terms of service. Trump, however, argues that protection awarded under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—which holds that internet companies are not liable for the content their users post provided they make a good faith effort to remove it should it violate copyrights or other terms—means they are not private companies, which is not true.
A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment. Facebook and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump's social media blackout came shortly after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. With the siege still ongoing, Trump tweeted that "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away." He later posted a video on YouTube in which he continued to lie about winning the 2020 election before telling those gathered at the Capitol to "go home now." But the clip ended with him telling them "We love you, you’re very special."
Twitter banned Trump on Jan. 9, and has said that ban is permanent. He was also banned indefinitely from Facebook and Instagram around the same time; Facebook said later that he would be banned for at least two years. YouTube did the same.
All three platforms cited the potential for Trump to incite more violence.
Trump is no stranger to lawsuits. As USA Today outlined in 2016, the former president had at the time been party to more than 4,000 lawsuits over this three decades in the public arena. Most focused on his casino businesses, but 14 were related to media or defamation suits.
As journalist Sam Stein notes, meanwhile, Trump and the Republican National Committee are now using the lawsuit to raise money for the party.