Former President Donald Trump’s legal team has amended his class-action lawsuit against Big Tech to incorporate additional class representatives and more censorship stories provided by everyday Americans.
According to the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), Trump’s July 7 lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and Google is adding ”additional censorship experiences” from some of the nearly 65,000 people who submitted them to the institute.
”Late last night, Amended Complaints were filed in the Big Tech lawsuits against Facebook, Inc., Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter, Inc., Jack Dorsey, Google LLC, and Sundar Pichai,” AFPI said in a July 28 statement.
“Since the initial filing on July 7, 2021, nearly 65,000 American people have submitted their stories of censorship through America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) Constitutional Litigation Partnership (CLP) at TakeOnBigTech.com,” AFPI added.
Trump said at a July 7 press conference outlining his plans for the legal action that he expected thousands of people would join his lawsuit. Several people invited to speak at the press conference shared their experiences of what they said amounted to censorship by social media platforms.
“Joining us this morning are just a few of the many Americans who have been illegally banned or silenced under the corrupt regime of censorship,” Trump said at the time.
“These brave patriots are included in the lawsuit and thousands more are joining as we speak. Thousands more. They’re all wanting to join. This will be, I think will go down as the biggest class action ever filed,” Trump predicted.
AFPI said in its statement that Trump’s amended complaint includes “additional censorship experiences and incorporates additional class representatives, including Dr. Naomi Wolf and Wayne Allyn Root—individuals on opposite ends of the political spectrum who highlight the bipartisan need to protect the thoughts and voices of all Americans, regardless of political affiliation.”
Wolf, a longtime liberal and former adviser to the political campaigns of both Bill Clinton and Al Gore, told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program in a recent interview that the growing number of people banned from Big Tech platforms is leading to a wave of self-censorship.
Wolf, who was banned by Twitter in June for allegedly sharing so-called misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, said the “chilling effect” her ban has had on other journalists is evident because some have reached out to her directly.
“I’ve gotten so many emails from other reporters saying, ‘I really admire you, I’m so sorry you were deplatformed.’ And when I would say ‘Well, can you say that publicly?’ They universally said, ‘I would, but I’m really afraid of being deplatformed.’ And I’ve seen the self-censorship that has gone on in the wake of some high-profile de-platforming of journalists,” she said.
Trump said at the July 7 press conference that his suit centers on protecting the First Amendment right to free speech.
“We’re asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to order an immediate halt to social media companies’ illegal, shameful censorship of the American people, and that’s exactly what they are doing,” the former president said.
“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. Our case will prove this censorship is unlawful, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s completely un-American,” added Trump, who himself was banned from major social media platforms following the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Twitter, Facebook, and Google said in January that they banned Trump over his claims that the Nov. 3 election was stolen and alleged that he contributed to the Jan. 6 violence. Twitter executives have said Trump’s ban will be permanent, Facebook imposed a two-year ban on the former president’s account, and Google-owned YouTube has said it would maintain his suspension until it determines that “the risk of violence has decreased.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey were named in the lawsuits—as well as the companies themselves. Trump said the lawsuits will seek a court award of punitive damages over the suspension.
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
David Fiorazo in his recent article, “Misinformation? The Left’s Campaign for Power,” wrote that the “Biden administration may be unintentionally helping President Trump’s lawsuit against the big tech giants“:
We can expect more [censorship] as social media giants align with the O’Biden administration to moderate, monitor, and control public information.
But there’s an interesting twist to this story. The Biden administration may be unintentionally helping President Trump’s lawsuit against the big tech giants.
Senator Ted Cruz has been pushing back hard, saying the Biden administration wants to have the power to silence you, but what they’re doing is unconstitutional, contrary to the First Amendment, and to a free society.
It’s interesting that what the left calls misinformation needing to be suppressed almost always involves censoring or silencing conservatives and benefitting Joe Biden. Also known as a double standard or one-way tolerance. But is it legal for government and private corporations to work together politically, and have they overplayed their hand?
Ted Cruz explains:
“But what they [White House] have inadvertently done is they have strengthened President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Big Tech, against Facebook and Twitter and Google – because what President Trump argues in the lawsuit is that they are violating the First Amendment by censoring Americans. The biggest arguments they have in their defense is they’re private companies, not the government. And the First Amendment only applies to the government.
Well, there’s an exception to that, the Supreme Court has long recognized, which is the government can’t use a private company to carry out a government policy. And here, this is what they’re doing. Here the Biden White House is asking the Big Tech monopolists, ‘please, silence, block, make disappear any views we disagree with.’ And I think that’s blatantly illegal. It’s also an abuse of power that is really contrary to the principles that our country was built on.”
We’ve never seen anything like this in the land of the free! Why? Because propaganda campaigns like this as well as the monitoring and censoring of citizens is communist policy. Dust off your history books. Sadly, what has happened in the last several years has revealed that the United States is now among those totalitarian governments.
Please understand the power of information and how it can be used as a weapon by those in power who control it.
We can no longer say as our great grandparents, ‘that could never happen in America.’ Here we are, friends. This is no longer just an insidious threat to the strength of the nation, it is an open assault on our free republic. The hypocrisy is those who called President Trump a dictator are strangely silent or are fine with all this.
We should all be committed to the truth, but where power censorship is concerned there are no quick fixes. But we can raise awareness as much as possible, support new, Christian, conservative, and independent sites and sources. Regardless of this opposition to the biblical worldview, pray for the Gospel to advance, for open debate, fair elections, respectful disagreements, and freedom of speech in America for all people.
It is no surprise that satan hates those who speak the truth. This has been displayed throughout history, and it is specifically amplified today, just as the Bible outlined it would in the time prior to Jesus Return.
2 Timothy 3:1, 8-9 states that “perilous times” will come in which “men of corrupt minds” will “resist the truth” and despise those who refuse to forsake Biblical morality.
Romans 1:18 similarly states that the “wrath of God is revealed from heaven against” those “who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” The word “hold” in this verse, comes from the Greek word “κατέχω,” which means to “hold back,” “restrain,” or “hinder.”
