(USA Features) Former President Donald Trump announced a class-action lawsuit against big tech platforms Facebook, Twitter, and Google for what he described as “unlawful” censorship.
“We’re demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and canceling that you know so well,” Trump said during a press conference at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., earlier Wednesday.
“We will prove that this censorship is unlawful, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s completely un-American.”
The suits are being supported by the legal group the America First Policy Institute, headed by former Trump officials Linda McMahon and Brooke Rollins.
Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter and will not be eligible to be reinstated by Facebook for at least two years.
The suits “seek compensatory and punitive damages to the plaintiff and the class in an amount to be determined at trial; an injunction and order for the sites to immediately reinstate the plaintiffs’ accounts; an order for the sites to remove warning labels and classifications from posts and to desist from further warnings; and a judgment declaring Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 unconstitutional,” Newsmax reported.
In comments to reporters, Trump claimed that “thousands” of people want to join the suit.
“Liberty is under increased threats and attacks by a lot of different sides,” Trump said.
“We are the majority side … social media has given extraordinary power to a group of Big Tech giants that are working with government, the mainstream media, and a large segment of a political party to suppress the views of the American people and they’ve been very successful at that,” he said.
Later, in an interview with Newsmax, Trump added, “They’ve taken away free speech and led to a lot of problems in this country.”
“It really leads to the mainstream media not doing their job because big tech is guiding them and guiding them all the way,” he added.
Trump said “millions of people” asked him to sue the tech giants over censorship and violations of the First Amendment’s speech and expression guarantees.
“They just can’t believe nobody’s done it before, so let’s see how it works out,” Trump added. “I think it will be very successful.”