Last Updated on February 12, 2022
President Donald Trump announced a class action lawsuit against Facebook, Google, and Twitter, with their respective CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey also named as defendants, following his total censorship from the big tech platforms earlier this year. Reactions from alt tech CEOs, who have examined multiple arguments against big tech, ranged from cynical accusations of grifting to cautious optimism.
“I am filing, as the lead class representative, a major class action lawsuit against the big tech giants, including Facebook, Google, and Twitter,” said President Trump. “There is no better evidence that big tech is out of control than the fact that they banned the sitting president of the United States earlier this year, a ban that continues to this day, continues. It’s not a fair situation, very very bad for this country, very bad for the world.”
“If they can do it to me they can do it to anyone, and in fact that is exactly what they’re doing. They’re taking people off who don’t even realize they were taken off, they have no idea why they were taken off. So what they’re doing is incredible, and incredibly dangerous,” said President Trump, who added that Americans are being “banned or silenced under the corrupt regime of censorship.” He added, “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, because thousands of people want to join.”
https://twitter.com/RSBNetwork/status/1412791903175725057
Trump: "There is no better evidence that big tech is out of control than the fact that they banned the sitting President of the United States earlier this year, a ban that continues to this day." pic.twitter.com/ZeaRV9lLOW
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) July 7, 2021
Gab CEO Andrew Torba and Spreely co-founder Mark Sidney expressed skepticism that President Trump’s case will be heard, frustration at the timing, and incredulity at the true motivates behind the class action suit. “These problems are real. They need to be addressed,” Spreely’s Sidney told National File. “I am glad that someone of President Trump’s stature, who has been deprived of his right to speak at greater cost than perhaps anyone else, is taking on this fight.”
“It would have been nice if this had happened before 90% of dissent was purged from social media,” he added. “If I were President Trump, I would be on sites like Spreely, Gab, and every platform out there. The media has put a gag order on anything the President says, and there’s no silver bullet around the media cartel.” Sidney concluded, “We need to fight a guerilla information war using as many fronts as possible, and each platform is a front that can be used to reach a different subset of people.”
While Sidney expressed cautious optimism, Gab’s Torba questioned the motives behind the suit and accused those around President Trump of grifting. “I’m sure the team of Grifters that the President has around him will raise a lot of money from decent hardworking Americans on this news though. I can hear Brad Parscale rubbing his hands together from here. He’s probably already shopping for a new Ferrari,” wrote Torba in his Telegram channel. On Gab, commenting on a comparison of the big tech websites to the Supreme Court, which a lawyer erroneously said determines what is “hate speech,” Torba added, “For 200 years ‘hate speech’ didn’t exist, and still doesn’t.”
