Previous President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit in Florida requesting that a federal judge have Twitter to restore his account. In Friday’s filing, Trump contends that being removed from Twitter disregards the First Amendment.
Trump’s lawyers argue that Twitter “exercises a degree of power and control over political discourse in this country that is immeasurable, historically unprecedented, and profoundly dangerous to open democratic debate.”
The filing says Twitter’s “censorship and prior restraint” of his speech “violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
“Coerced by members of the United States Congress, operating under an unconstitutional immunity granted by a permissive federal statute, and acting directly with federal officials, Defendant is censoring Plaintiff, a former President of the United States,” the filing reads.
The filing cites defense attorney and legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, “[p]laintiff’s right to speak freely has been seriously compromised by … Twitter. Moreover, the rights of his audience to have access to his views have also been curtailed.”
The filing additionally asserts that Twitter has selectively enforced its policies, bringing up members of the Taliban who have active accounts on Twitter.
“Over the weeks that followed, Twitter allowed the Taliban to tweet regularly about their military conquests and victories across Afghanistan. The Taliban’s Twitter account is active to this day,” the filing states.
Trump’s attorneys additionally allege that his Twitter removal violates the Stop Social Media Censorship Act – a social media law signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year.
The law states, “All Floridians treated unfairly by Big Tech platforms will have the right to sue companies that violate this law — and win monetary damages.” Also, social media organizations are “prohibited from de-platforming Floridian political candidates” or face fines of $250,000 per day.
Yet, the law was hindered by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on June 30 – a day before it was supposed to go into effect.
“The legislation now at issue was an effort to rein in social-media providers deemed too large and too liberal,” Hinkle wrote in the 31-page order. “Balancing the exchange of ideas among private speakers is not a legitimate government interest.”
The DeSantis administration appealed the judge’s choice and is waiting to see if the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will lift the order.
Trump was removed from Twitter two days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which the social media organizations allege Trump started violence by questioning the results of the 2020 election.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the micro-blogging platform said.
At the time he was removed, Trump had over 88 million followers.
Trump is additionally restricted from Facebook until at least Jan. 7, 2023.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said in March that the platform would lift its suspension on Trump’s channel when it decides the “risk of incitement to violence” has diminished. Alphabet Inc. is the parent organization of YouTube and Google.
In July, Trump started a class action lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook, and Google.
“Today, in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I’m filing as the lead class action representative a major class action lawsuit against the Big Tech giants including Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as their CEOs,” Trump said at a press conference declaring the lawsuit.