Donald Trump announces a complaint against Twitter, Facebook and Google and their bosses. The American billionaire seeks to lift the digital exclusion of which he is subject on these platforms.
Defeated in the 2020 US presidential election, Donald Trump has still not really admitted his defeat to Joe Biden. The former US president has also not digested his ouster from social networks following the invasion of the Capitol by his supporters, an event in which four people lost their lives. It is this exclusion which is now in the news.
In a conference organized this Wednesday, July 7, and broadcast on the YouTube account of the America First Policy Institute, a non-profit organization favorable to Donald Trump, the former tenant of the White House announced a lawsuit against three of the most important American tech companies: Google, Twitter and Facebook, but also their bosses: Sundar Pichai, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg.
The lawsuit, filed in a Florida court, basically requires two things : the rapid restoration of Donald Trump’s social accounts as well as the payment of damages for the damage suffered. During his conference, the former president also highlighted a website, Take On Big Tech (“Tackle large tech companies”), which announces the color.
Suspicions of censorship against conservative voices
Before his ejection from major social networks, he had around 88 million subscribers on Twitter, 32 million on Facebook, 24 million on Instagram (a subsidiary of Facebook) and 3 million on YouTube (a subsidiary of Google). These are not the only companies in this case: Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch, TikTok, Shopify have also made identical arrangements.
In his eyes, his banishment is the ” best proof that Big Tech is out of control He said during his press conference, because he was still in office. It was not until January 20 that Joe Biden officially took office. Yet the decisions of the tech giants took place in the days following January 6, when supporters of Donald Trump marched on Capitol Hill.
” If they can do it to me, they can do it to anyone. And besides that’s exactly what they do “, He added, giving the floor to other Americans who would also be censored by these platforms. He asks justice to put an end to this ” illegal, unconstitutional censorship […] illegal and shameful “. ” We require that […] the end of the forced silence “.
” Big Tech is out of control “
Behind the scenes, the class action lawsuit launched by Donald Trump relaunches allegations against the internet giants, who are said to be taking measures in secret to silence conservative voices. These assertions, Axios recalls, have never been demonstrated. It is on them that Donald Trump has yet relied to try to push through, without success, a legislative reform against social networks.
The platforms, when banning Donald Trump, had first opted for a period of temporary exclusion, before making it permanent.
Facebook, however, had to review its plans during the year at the request of its supervisory board, because it noticed concerns in the way in which moderation was exercised. The site therefore adjusted the sanction in June, by excluding Donald Trump no longer indefinitely, but for two years, with a reassessment of the situation in January 2023 to find out whether this sanction should be maintained or if it is possible to raise it.
For Donald Trump, the action against the giants of the net also has a visibility issue: since he was sidelined from the main communication channels of the net, the former head of state is no longer a topic of discussion and its actions no longer interest many people. His blog, which he started after his ban, ended up being deleted, because he was not making an audience.
But if Donald Trump hopes to rebuild a political career within a few years, obviously having the American presidential election of 2024 in his sights, he must regain his various digital megaphones, which allow him to achieve much more. of people than conservative community sites won over to his cause, be it Parler or Gettr, but which stir up fewer people.
