Late last month, former President Donald Trump said he’d not be returning to Twitter even if his account gets unbanned under its imminent free speech absolutist leader Elon Musk. “No, I won’t be going back on Twitter. I will be on Truth Social within the week. It’s on schedule. We have a lot of people signed up. I like Elon Musk. I like him a lot. He’s an excellent individual. We did a lot for Twitter when I was in the White House. I was disappointed by the way I was treated by Twitter. I won’t be going back on Twitter,” Donald Trump said.
This ruling comes just two weeks after the former President made it public that he had no interest in returning to Twitter.
A recently dismissed lawsuit by the former US President, however, suggests otherwise. It also suggests that Donald Trump may want to get back on Twitter by almost any means. On Friday, a judge dismissed a lawsuit he filed looking to overturn his Twitter ban.
San Francisco federal district Judge James Donato, however, gave Donald Trump and other plaintiffs the opportunity to file an amended complaint against the social media company. The lawsuit against Twitter and its co-founder Jack Dorsey was filed last year by Donald Trump, the American Conservative Union, and five other individuals on behalf of themselves and other Twitter users who had been ousted from the platform.
Donald Trump got kicked out of Twitter on the 8th of January 2021 for inciting violence after the Capitol incident. His account was “permanently suspended… due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said.
According to the suit, Donald Trump claims that Twitter violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights to free speech adding that Twitter received pressure from Democratic members of Congress to ban him and others. The judge in his 17-page ruling wrote that the plaintiffs were not starting from a position of strength with their First Amendment claim noting that “Twitter is a private company, and the First Amendment applies only to governmental abridgments of speech, and not to alleged abridgments by private companies,” while citing federal case law.
Judge James Donata also refused to accept the notion that the ban on the plaintiffs was government-induced. This would have been the only way to uphold the First Amendment violation claim. “Overall, the amended complaint does not plausibly allege that Twitter acted as a government entity when it closed plaintiffs’ accounts,” the judge wrote.
Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter for $44 billion got accepted by Twitter’s board and there have been speculations that the billionaire who plans to make the platform one that promotes free speech may overturn the ban on suspended accounts.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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