Donald Trump's First Amendment suits against Facebook, Twitter and Google are being panned in the media.
But never count him out. He's way underrated!
They say the First Amendment ordinarily applies only to government – not private companies. Many make this mistake, especially conservatives.
When the plaintiffs claim in their class-action lawsuit that the tech companies should be treated as state actors and therefore are bound by the First Amendment when they engage in selective political censorship, they have precedent to back it up. Big Tech censorship constitutes state action because the government granted them immunity from legal liability, has implicitly threatened to punish them if they allow disfavored speech, and has colluded with them in choosing targets for censorship.
That goes for me, too. As WND's editor, I had no choice but to play by their rules – rules that actually went into effect in 1996. That's when Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, Section 230(c)(2) of which has been interpreted to permit tech companies to censor constitutionally protected speech and to immunize them from liability when they do.
Despite its passage 25 years ago, the Tech Tyrants didn't begin to take their liberties with it until 2016 – when Donald Trump was elected president.
Since then, congressional Democrats have issued severe, explicit and repeated threats to retaliate against social-media companies if they fail to remove "hate speech" and "misinformation" that the government can't directly censor under the Constitution.
Both Twitter and Facebook banned Trump for totally political reasons – while he was the sitting president of the United States and leader of the Free World. Google also banned speech about him that was in favor of him.
I once tried to convince Trump that Google specifically had it in for him, as evidenced by their choices of news agencies for high-profile positions on their rankings – all anti-Trump. Seldom in U.S. history has the media had it in for one American as bad as it did, and still does, for Donald Trump. Even Fox News was seen by the Tech Tyrants as over-the-top for Trump.
The New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN are all favored by the Tech Tyrants – in fact, one of them is completely owned by one of those tech oligarchs, Jeff Bezos. "Fake news," Trump calls them all.
This lawsuit is thus truly important to our nation.
A big ruling on this could set that stage for the presidential race in 2024. And it's not likely to be the last of the legal actions against Big Tech.
But Trump's lawsuit also is important for this independent news agency. We have been severely hurt – singled out, slammed, maligned by Big Tech. They have done everything possible to squeeze us – including things you don't know.
Since Big Tech suppressed, de-monetized, maligned and banned us – and also destroyed the advertising-based business model on which we have long depended – to survive we have regrouped and established the WND News Center, an IRS-approved 501(c)3 nonprofit, which allows us to receive your tax-deductible donations. WND used to be a wildly successful for-profit enterprise – bringing in some $15 million dollars a year. We published books then, and made movies too. But it was all too much for Big Tech to take.
Now we're fortunate if we survive.
Which is why we're conducting a crucial fundraising campaign for the rest of this month.
We're aiming at a total of $100,000. Is WND worth it? Only you can decide. I hope you will each make a prayerful choice!
UPDATE ON WND'S REVIVAL CAMPAIGN: Beginning June 15, we launched a drive to raise $100,000 so WND, now in its 25th year, can continue to operate. As of today, we've raised $39,868.39. Thank you sincerely for that, all who donated. Now we need to raise the remaining $60,131.61 by the end of July. Please support us by making a generous tax-deductible donation to the WND News Center, the nonprofit, charitable, 501(c)3 sister organization to the for-profit WND. And consider sending a monthly contribution of any amount.
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