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Recode Daily

The real reason Trump is suing Big Tech

Recode Daily

Recode

Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2021

⏱️ 12 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Donald Trump filed lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and Google last week, accusing the companies of violating his and other conservatives’ First Amendment rights. The cases likely won’t hold up in court, but winning these lawsuits seems to be beside the point for the former president. Recode’s Shirin Ghaffary (@shiringhaffary) explains. Read her story here. Enjoyed this episode? Rate Recode Daily ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. What do you want to learn on Recode Daily? Send your requests and questions to recodedaily@recode.net. We read every email! Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Recode Daily by subscribing in your favorite podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This episode was made by: Host: Adam Clark Estes (@adamclarkestes) - Producer: Taylor Maycan (@taylormaycan) - Engineer: Paul Mounsey Support Recode Daily by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:39.6

After the capital insurrection in January, the social media giants removed Donald Trump from

0:44.2

their platforms. Mark Zuckerberg posting the dramatic move that they believe that the risks of

0:50.6

allowing the president to continue to use the service are too great and they will be blocking

0:54.6

the president on Facebook and Instagram indefinitely and at least for the next week.

0:59.8

YouTube is the latest media platform to block president Trump. Twitter run by CEO Jack Dorsey saying

1:05.3

after close review of the president's recent tweets, it banned him due to the risk of further

1:10.3

incitement of violence. And last week, we learned that the former president has filed class action

1:15.9

lawsuits against these companies and their CEOs. Trump is accusing them of censoring users for

1:21.6

their political viewpoints, arguing that Facebook, Google, and Twitter are violating the First Amendment.

1:27.3

There's just one problem though. They're not.

1:34.8

Rico Dschrien Gaffari has been covering the saga and she joins us today. Hi, Shereen.

1:39.0

Hey Adam. So we're a journalist and we're pretty familiar with the First Amendment.

1:43.8

It only protects people from government censorship. So companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google,

1:49.8

they're not the government. So what's the thinking behind these lawsuits?

1:53.9

So first, I'll just back up for a second and say that there is no systematic evidence that tech

1:58.6

companies are out to censor conservatives. They have rules against things like hate speech or

...

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