YouTube to pay $28 million to settle Trump account suspension suit

WASHINGTON – YouTube has agreed to pay US$22 million (S$28.4 million) to settle a lawsuit filed by US President Donald Trump after the company suspended his account over the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to a court filing on Sept 29.

The online video platform, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet, is the latest big tech firm to settle with Mr Trump after he lodged legal cases challenging his broad deplatforming after the Jan 6 incident.

The US$22 million will go towards Mr Trump’s latest construction project at the White House, through a nonprofit called the Trust for the National Mall, which is “dedicated to restoring, preserving and elevating the National Mall, to support the construction of the White House State Ballroom”, according to a notice of settlement filing in a California federal court.

Besides the US$22 million to Mr Trump’s ballroom venture, YouTube agreed to pay US$2.5 million to several other Trump allies, including the American Conservative Union.

Mr Trump reposted a message on his Truth Social platform late on Sept 29 saying “this MASSIVE victory proves Big Tech censorship has consequences,” adding that the Republican “fought for free speech and WON!”

Major platforms removed Mr Trump after Jan 6 amid worries he would promote further violence with bogus claims that voter fraud caused his loss to former president Joe Biden in 2020.

The platform blocked Mr Trump from uploading new content on Jan 12, 2021, pointing to “concerns about the ongoing potential for violence”. The move came in parallel with actions by Facebook and Twitter, which also suspended Mr Trump’s ability to post after the Jan 6 upheaval.

The 79-year-old Republican took social media companies and YouTube to court, claiming he was wrongfully censored.

His lawyers maintained he was kicked off under “non-existent or broad, vague and ever-shifting standards”, according to the original July 2021 complaint against YouTube and Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai.

Mr Trump’s posting privileges were curbed after more than 140 police officers were injured in hours of clashes with pro-Trump rioters wielding flagpoles, baseball bats, hockey sticks and other makeshift weapons, along with tasers and canisters of bear spray. They wanted to block Congress from certifying Mr Biden’s win.

Free speech violation?

Legal experts have seen Mr Trump’s claims against the tech giants as shaky at best, noting that the First Amendment of the US Constitution bars the government, but not private actors, from restricting speech.

YouTube “is not a state actor and its exercise of editorial discretion over its private service does not implicate plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights”, the company said in a Dec 2021 rebuttal to Mr Trump’s brief.

Journalism watchdog group Media Matters decried the settlement, saying it portends continued First Amendment problems under Mr Trump.

“YouTube’s capitulation is shameful and shortsighted. Needlessly folding now will only help encourage Trump’s efforts to stifle dissent by bringing media and online platforms to heel,” Mr Angelo Carusone, the group’s president, told AFP in a statement.

But tech and media companies have greenlighted settlements with Mr Trump since his return to office as they await action from Washington on major matters affecting their businesses.

Big questions facing YouTube and Google/Alphabet include a trial in Virginia, in which a federal court is weighing a request from government lawyers to order the break-up of the search engine giant’s ad technology business.

In February, Mr Elon Musk’s social media platform X settled a Trump lawsuit against the company and its former chief executive Jack Dorsey for about US$10 million.

In January, days after Mr Trump’s inauguration, Meta agreed to pay US$25 million to settle his complaint, with US$22 million of the payment going towards funding his future presidential library.

Media companies have also agreed to settlements with the US leader in cases brought by him that experts see as legally dodgy.

For example, Paramount Global agreed to pay US$16 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Mr Trump over an interview with former vice-president Kamala Harris that he claimed was edited unfairly. The accord came as Paramount sought approval for its acquisition by Skydance.

The Federal Communications Commission approved the US$8 billion takeover of Paramount in July. AFP