Trump Sues Google, Facebook and YouTube in Ridiculous Lawsuits

In his various court challenges to the results of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenfuhrer, encountered the serious problem of his attorneys, when pressed by judges in open court, refusing to make the false and unfounded arguments set forth in their complaints filed with the courts.  Most recanted or refused to press the arguments when faced with the prospect of disbarment and/or court imposed sanctions.  The few who persisted in the lies have either been disbarred - think Rudi Giuliani - or have faced paying court costs and legal fees of the defendants in the frivolous lawsuits.  Now, Trump, has sued Facebook, Google and YouTube for banning him from their platforms, bans that were based on the falsity of Trump's claims and/or the calls to violence they embodied. The suits are ridiculous since the First Amendment guaranty of free speech (which does have limits) applies to GOVERNMENT censorship, not private companies which are free to set guidelines and policies governing the use of their social media platforms. One can only hope that Trump's current attorneys are quickly faced with bar complaints and/or court sanctions for having violated their oaths to not attempt to perpetrate a fraud on or to lie to the courts. One has to wonder how long it will be before the actual law firms involved seek to withdraw from the cases rather than seek action by the state bars or a backlash from legitimate, sane clients.  A piece in Wonkette looks at the ridiculous lawsuits.  Here are article excerpts:

"The First Amendment says Facebook can't block me" is a take you might expect to hear from a kid arguing with their parents. It's not, generally, something you would expect to hear from a former president, who should surely know by now that the First Amendment only applies to the government.

Well, apparently that's yet another thing that Trump and his lawyers simply can't comprehend.

Today was a big day for the whiny crybaby former president. He got to have a completely unhinged press conference AND file three of the dumbest lawsuits I have ever seen.

Honestly, the complaints are works of art — that is, until you realize they aren't satire.

If you're looking for a quick anecdote from the suits that gives an accurate preview of just how ridiculous they are, at one point, the Twitter suit says it's a violation of the First Amendment that the American Conservative Union and CPAC have lost Twitter followers.

By paragraph three of each complaint, the FORMER PRESIDENT (that cannot be emphasized enough) declares that Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are the government. And, as "the government," these private companies are violating his First Amendment rights. Because Section 230. (Section 230 primer available here.)

Yes, seriously.

[W]hat these lawsuits are trying to do is what actually violates the First Amendment. As private companies, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have a First Amendment right to choose what kind of speech is permitted on their platforms.

I think — though, to be honest, I had trouble understanding vast swaths of the complaints' ramblings — Trump also declares that he unilaterally made social media companies "the government" by using their platforms?

Trump isn't just fighting this fight for himself, either. He is fighting for ALL the people who have had their social media accounts "censored" since June 2018. And it's not only for people who got banned; Trump wants to include everyone who had a post "flagged, removed, or shadow banned" during that time.

The complaints, which are identical except for short sections specific to each platform, name Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as each company's CEO (Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai, respectively). The CEOs are being sued in both their individual capacity and also their "official capacity" as, I guess, government actors? 

You can tell right away that these lawsuits are going to be good, from the not one, but two lawyers who use AOL.com email addresses in their signature blocks. 

Almost every word in these complaints is dumb and bad and wrong. I mean, they are, unfortunately, correct that Trump managed to be such a psychopath that he got banned from social media while he was the sitting US president, but that's pretty much where any resemblance to reality ends.

There's also an entire section about how the companies worked with the CDC to "curb the spread of vaccine misinformation." That, I guess, makes social media companies "the government"? And the grifter-in-chief must still be getting some kind of kickbacks from Big Hydroxychloroquine And Also Big Bleach, because he's still sad he can't use social media to push ineffective and even dangerous "cures" for the "China virus."

One of the most telling parts comes when the complaints actually say the Trump social media bans are leading to discourse being "one-sided on race."

By banning Plaintiff, Defendants made it more difficult for Plaintiff to communicate directly with the American public. Our national discourse is becoming immeasurably more altered and one-sided on race, medicine, the election process, the economy, immigration, etc.

And what, precisely, is the "side" you take on race, Mr. Trump?

Actually, you know what? You're right. What Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube really need are more white supremacists.

I am just SURE that the white supremacist former president's YouTube comments were full of intelligent political debate.

All three suits were filed in the Southern District of Florida and should be quickly dismissed, even if assigned to a Trump-appointed, unqualified stooge judge. Normally, I wouldn't put entirely ignoring the law and precedent past Trump's judicial picks, but that's just how bad these lawsuits are.

Florida has an anti-SLAPP law, so fingers crossed for some serious sanctions against both the plaintiffs and the lawyers who they managed to get to file these absolute monstrosities.