A California court has dismissed Donald Trump’s complaint, which accused Twitter of “censorship” and denounced a violation of the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by the American Constitution.
Donald Trump will not return to Twitter at this time. First of all because the former president of the United States, who accumulated more than 80 million subscribers at the end of his mandate, prefers to concentrate on the development of his own platform, Truth Social. But at the same time, a California court ruled Friday, May 6, 2022 a complaint by Donald Trump against Twitter inadmissible.
The former president’s complaint was made after his exclusion from the social network in January 2021 for incitement to violence. In the wake of Joe Biden’s election, supporters of Donald Trump, galvanized by their leader, stormed the Capitol in Washington, events that led to the death of several people. In the process, several online platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, decided to ban the billionaire.
But for the Californian court, quoted by AFP, Twitter is in its right. “The plaintiffs are not in a strong position”thus explained the judge James Donato, because “Twitter is a private company, and ‘the First Amendment only applies to government-imposed speech restrictions'”. The rules of the platform “gives contractual permission to Twitter to do as it wishes with any account or content for any reason, and even for no reason”added the judge.
When filing his complaint, Donald Trump also asked that the court declare unconstitutional the famous Section 230, a 1996 law which protects Internet hosts from lawsuits related to content published by third parties. The former president was also dismissed.