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maqroll

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2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Trump to sue CEOs of Facebook and Twitter over his ban. Could be amusing.

I bet he'll crowdfund it, too. 

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54 minutes ago, bickster said:

Trump to sue CEOs of Facebook and Twitter over his ban. Could be amusing.

What is he hoping to sue them for?

No one has a right to Facebook or Twitter - it's like trying to sue someone because they won't let you into their house.

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41 minutes ago, sne said:

Guess he won't be represented by Giuliani as he's no longer allowed to practice law... :)

In New York and Washington - not sure if he has a licence to practice in Florida or whether that would be valid now in light of the other suspensions. 

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4 hours ago, sne said:

Guess he won't be represented by Giuliani as he's no longer allowed to practice law... :)

I read earlier that his crowdfunding for his defence has had 92 contributions since it was set up  - 0.008% of the hoped-for total. 

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7 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

What is he hoping to sue them for?

No one has a right to Facebook or Twitter - it's like trying to sue someone because they won't let you into their house.

It's not a serious lawsuit. He is suing the CEOs personally, not the companies, and has made it a class action suit for some reason - all the analysis I have seen suggests these are decisions you would make if you wanted a publicity stunt, not a victory in a lawsuit.

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6 minutes ago, bickster said:

He's suing both the CEOs and the Companies

 

Yes, it seems you're right, apologies for the mistaken information, I was going off something I read earlier.

However, the consensus does seem to be that the lawsuit is not serious, see for example:

Donald Trump files sweeping, nonsensical lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and Google

'Former President Donald Trump has filed proposed class action lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and Google subsidiary YouTube as well as CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai. The lawsuits come six months after Trump was permanently or temporarily suspended from all three platforms.

[...]

However, the claims are based on an amalgamation of mostly untested or disregarded legal arguments, and they come after numerous other failed attempts to sue social media companies over suspensions or other forms of moderation.

The complaints allege that social media companies violated the First Amendment by suspending Trump and other users from their networks, an argument that courts have typically disregarded — ruling overwhelmingly that the First Amendment is intended to limit censorship by the government, not private companies [..].

Trump’s lawsuits seek damages on behalf of any users who have had an account “wrongly restricted or curtailed” on Facebook, Twitter, or a Google service. It asks courts to declare Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional. Trump paradoxically cited Section 230 as a legal justification for suing the companies in his press conference, however, saying incorrectly that “once they got Section 230 they’re not private companies.”

The claim also seemingly challenges the premise of social media terms of service agreements — complaining that Facebook, for instance, “expressly conditioned” usage on agreeing to “speech restrictions imposed by Facebook.”

[...]

“We’re not looking for a settlement. We don’t expect a settlement,” Trump said in response to a question during the press conference, suggesting that companies could be liable for “potentially trillions of dollars” in damages, “a number the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before.”

This appears unlikely. On Twitter, attorney and legal writer Eric Goldman cited an upcoming paper that found courts almost invariably side with web platforms when users sue for being banned. Judges have thrown out not only suits from conservative users, but also ones that allege discrimination based on protected classes — as in a recently dismissed lawsuit against Google, which some Black creators accused of suppressing or demonetizing videos about race. Users have prevailed in rare cases where censorship is done not by platforms, but by government agencies and politicians using them, including Trump himself.'

from: https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/7/22566729/trump-lawsuit-facebook-twitter-google-social-media-censorship

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On 08/07/2021 at 02:00, maqroll said:

He knows he'll need money now that his company is crashing and burning. Total desperation.

But if he loses, which he will, won't he be in a world of financial pain even beyond his current situation?

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1 minute ago, Lichfield Dean said:

But if he loses, which he will, won't he be in a world of financial pain even beyond his current situation?

I genuinely don't think he's considered the idea that he could lose.

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3 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I genuinely don't think he's considered the idea that he could lose.

I mean, Facebook et. al. have iron-clad t&C's about their ability to remove people from their platform (which they have every right to as private companies). There is no free speech argument here, I can't see how Trump could possibly win on that front. Unless he's got some other kind of shady leverage...

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12 minutes ago, Lichfield Dean said:

I mean, Facebook et. al. have iron-clad t&C's about their ability to remove people from their platform (which they have every right to as private companies). There is no free speech argument here, I can't see how Trump could possibly win on that front. Unless he's got some other kind of shady leverage...

I'm not saying that he won't lose. I'm saying there's a good chance that he hasn't considered that he might lose. :)

 

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