A U.S. judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump to challenge his Twitter ban after his account was permanently suspended following last year’s Capitol riots.
The former US president has filed a motion for a preliminary ban against the social media company and tried to claim that Twitter was “forced” by members of the US Congress to suspend the account, which had tens of millions of followers.
In a written decision, U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that Twitter violated his right to freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Twitter was among several social media platforms that removed Mr Trump from his services after a mob stormed the US Parliament building during the January 6 riots, which killed several people.
After the attack, Mr Trump delivered a speech in which he repeated false allegations that his loss in the election was due to widespread fraud – something that has been repeatedly debunked by courts and election officials.
In a lawsuit last year, Mr Trump’s lawyers argued that the social media site “exercises a degree of power and control over the political discourse in this country, which is immeasurable, historically unprecedented and deeply dangerous to open a democratic debate.”
The document added that Twitter allowed the Taliban to tweet frequently about its military victories in Afghanistan, but censored the president during his tenure by labeling his posts as “misleading information.”
In July, Mr Trump launched a lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google, along with their CEOs, alleging that they were illegally stifling conservative views.
During his suspension, Twitter claimed that his tweets violated the platform’s policy of banning “glorification of violence.”
The company said the tweets that led to Mr Trump’s removal were “very likely” to encourage people to repeat what happened during the Capitol riots.
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During his rule, Mr. Trump was often accused of running on Twitter, with messages being made through his megaphone on social media in front of official channels – at the time, a single tweet could provoke outrage.
For example, in July 2017, he announced his decision to ban transgender troops in three tweets. In March 2018, he fired Rex Tillerson, his then Secretary of State, through the platform.
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These days, after being thrown into the desert on social media, he is forced to make e-mails to the press and his own startup, Truth Social.
However, this may not be the last time the former apprentice star has been seen online.
After Elon Musk took power, there was speculation that he – as an “absolutist of freedom of speech” – could force the restoration of Mr. Trump’s account.
However, Mr Musk may find that he is limited by reality, because under US law, the right to freedom of expression ends where harm or incitement to injury begins.
And in a typical irritable style, Mr Trump said he did not want to return to the platform that rejected him, but rather stuck to his own alternative network, Truth Social.
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