Donald Trump's lawsuit against Twitter
A federal judge in San Francisco, James Donato, dismissed Donald Trump's case against Twitter in October 2021 in order to reclaim his account on the social network.
After some of his supporters stormed the Capitol during the failed coup in January 2021, Twitter decided to permanently suspend the former president's account. The business based its decision on two tweets from Donald Trump, which he viewed as "most likely encouraging and pushing people to mimic the criminal crimes that occurred in the United States Capitol."
Donald Trump sought a preliminary injunction on the ban in his complaint, claiming that the social network's action violated his rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
However, Judge Donato did not share Trump and his lawyers' vision and chose to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that Twitter is a private company: "The First Amendment applies only to government limitations on freedom of expression, not to the supposed limitations on the part of private companies."
In addition to regaining control of his Twitter account, Donald Trump requested the judge to declare the federal Communications Decency Act unlawful. This rule states that suppliers of internet services, such as social networks, are not liable for the content posted by their users.
In this part, the setback for the former President of the United States may be more personal because he is a well-known critic of Section 230 of the legislation, going so far as to recommend limiting the protections afforded by social media platforms during his term.
In response to the suspension of his Twitter account, Donald Trump launched Truth Social, his own social network. Truth Social has been in difficulties because it allegedly breached the Mastodon license, which mandates the source code of any project or derivative product to be shared.
At this point, Donald Trump's legal battle with Twitter appears to be more about pride than anything else, as the former US president told CNBC that he would not return to Twitter even if Elon Musk, the current ultimate owner of the social network, pardoned him.
