OAKLAND, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Former President Donald Trump will, for now, have to fight Twitter, YouTube and Facebook separately as he pursues lawsuits over them banning him from their platforms.
Judge Jeffrey White, of the U.S. Court for the Northern District of California, on Jan. 11 denied Trump’s motion to consolidate his three cases. White ruled it was premature to determine whether consolidation would serve the interests of convenience and judicial economy.
Should things change, White would allow Trump to re-file his request.
Two days after the ruling, Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms, filed its response to Trump.
“Mr. Trump asserts that Meta violated the First Amendment by removing his posts from Facebook, but that claim fails because the First Amendment prohibits only the government from restricting speech,” the response says.
“It does not apply to editorial judgments made by private entities such as Meta. Rather, as courts have held repeatedly, the First Amendment protects a private entity’s editorial decisions about what content to leave up and take down.”
Elsewhere, Trump’s case against YouTube has drawn the interest of President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, which seeks to address Trump’s interpretation of Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act.
That section protects an “interactive computer service” provider from liability for third-party content hosted on the service or for removing or restricting access to material it finds offensive.
Trump is also hoping to invoke a new Florida law that requires online platforms to establish clear rules for account suspension and follow them regardless of whether they agree with a user’s speech. But that law was passed after Trump’s suspension, Meta argues, so it doesn’t apply.
Trump was booted off the platforms after the Jan. 6, 2021, siege at the U.S. Capitol. He seeks injunctions overturning those decisions.