Category: News

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers have crafted an “impressive” legal argument that has a strong chance of convincing a judge to compel YouTube to reinstate his channel, according to at least one attorney familiar with the lawsuit.

In one of his three class-action suits, Trump asked a Florida judge overseeing his case against YouTube to issue a preliminary injunction that would require the company to reinstate his account on the platform, which would allow him to sell merchandise as part of any political fundraising efforts, the New York Post reported.

Trump’s lawyers say they will file similar requests in the suits against social media giants Facebook and Twitter. Trump’s legal team argues that keeping the former president off of the platforms would cause irreparable harm to Trump as a potential political candidate in the future and the Republican Party overall.

“This injunction is so important because quite possibly the midterms are on the line here,” said marketing and Big Tech expert Adam Rizzieri.

Attorney Paul Kamenar, who serves as counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, said he was “very impressed” with the legal arguments put forward by Trump’s attorneys.

“The legal issues presented are excellent,” he said. “I expect [the injunction] to be granted either by this court or by the appellate court.”

Kamenar expects the forthcoming injunction requests to also have a “strong basis for prevailing.” If the judges deny the motions, however, he believes the appellate court would “look favorably on the appeal.”

In the three separate, yet nearly identical, lawsuits filed last month, Trump claims he has been unlawfully censored by the Big Tech companies. The suits also ask federal judges to overturn the immunity protections afforded to these companies by deeming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional.

Under Section 230, Internet companies are largely exempt from liability for the material posted by users. The section permits social media platforms to moderate posts that violate their standards or are obscene – if they act in “good faith.” But many conservatives argue the Big Tech titans have gone out of their way to silence their viewpoints on various politically charged topics.

Trump was booted off social media platforms for posts and comments he made following the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach. He has been permanently banned from Twitter and is ineligible to return to Facebook for at least two more years. YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki said in March that the video platform would lift its suspension on Trump’s channel when it decides the risk of real-world violence has decreased.

In announcing his decision to file a motion for preliminary injunction, Trump said he is “fighting back” against “Big Tech’s unlawful and Communist-style censorship.”

“The American people, and truth itself, are under attack by Big Tech’s unlawful and Communist-style censorship,” he said in a statement. “We filed a historic class action lawsuit because every American deserves to have their First Amendment Rights protected, not destroyed by leftist radicals in Silicon Valley.”

Since announcing his plan to take on Big Tech, he said more than 85,000 Americans, whose “voices are being silenced and freedoms restricted,” have joined the suit.

“We must fight back,” Trump said. “They are destroying our Country. There is nothing more important than our right to free speech.”

Trump filed the suits with the America First Policy Institute, which was founded by former members of his administration.

The motion for injunctive relief argues that Trump’s First Amendment rights were violated and that YouTube violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Kamenar believes that Trump will win on both arguments because Trump’s attorneys crafted a powerful case showing how YouTube is “arbitrarily discriminating against President Trump” with “no rational basis” when compared to how it treats other YouTube users who have been allowed to remain on the platform despite showing violent videos.

According to Trump’s suit, YouTube removed a video about the Capitol breach from his account on Jan. 6. He was indefinitely suspended from the platform on Jan. 27.

Kamenar said the motion points out how YouTube violates Florida’s consumer law by unfairly determining who it lets on its platform and who it kicks off.

“They are arbitrarily applying their reasons in a way that discriminates against Trump and thousands of others conservative voices,” he said.

AFPI Constitutional Litigation Partnership executive director Katie Sullivan told the New York Post that the social media giants have “inconsistently applied their terms and services and their community standards” and “they censor specific voices and thought so that other users only hear one side of a story.”

She pointed out that banning Trump from Twitter, but allowing the Taliban to broadcast from the platform as they took over control of Afghanistan is a “perfect example” of the uneven application of rules.

“I mean that’s just low-hanging fruit right there,” she said.

Trump railed against Twitter last week for permitting the Taliban’s presence on the platform while his ban continues to stand.

“It’s disgraceful when you think that you have killers and muggers and dictators and horrible — some horrible dictators and countries, and they’re all on, but the president of the United States, who had hundreds of millions of people, by the way, he gets taken off,” Trump said in a statement.

Rizzieri said Twitter’s decision to allow the Taliban on the platform while keeping Trump off sends the message that Trump is worse than a regime that has killed Americans, beaten women for showing their faces in public, and conducted public beheadings.

When you compare the two accounts and realize a former U.S. president, who was supported by at least half of the country, is banned, while a militant regime is still active, Rizzieri said it is “so ridiculous” and the “definition of hypocrisy” – but that hypocrisy runs rampant in Big Tech.

The lawsuit against YouTube, which also names the CEO of parent company Alphabet as a defendant, additionally claims that the company was forced to ban Trump by Congressional lawmakers, especially Democrats.

Rizzieri said it won’t be hard for Trump’s legal team to prove there is a “strong link” between Twitter’s leadership team and the White House communication team when it files that motion for an injunction.

He pointed out that White House press secretary Jen Psaki has said on the record how the White House has an open line of communication with Big Tech companies.

“We are in regular touch with the social media platforms, and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID-19 team,” Psaki told reporters during a July press briefing.

She added that the White House was “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”

Rizzieri said if Trump’s lawyers can show “with consistency” just how closely tied the White House is with the Big Tech officials who are “making daily censorship decisions,” the case will be a “shoo-in” for Trump and his nine co-plaintiffs.

© 2021 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

A Colorado Rockies fan who just wanted a family photo with the baseball team’s mascot, Dinger, instead was vilified by the home team and excoriated by countless outlets and social media trolls as a racist.

During a Sunday game at Coors Field, an unidentified person alerted the Rockies that they thought they heard a fan repeatedly yell a racial slur while Lewis Brinson, a Black outfielder for the visiting Miami Marlins, was batting in the ninth inning.

As it turns out, the fan wasn’t yelling a racial epithet and was just trying to get the attention of the Rockies’ mascot – a purple triceratops named “Dinger,” who is named after a decades-old, common slang term for a home run.

But by the time that determination was made and the fan was fully cleared, the damage was done.

The Rockies issued a statement while still pursuing their own investigation and called the incident disgusting. Tony Clark, a former player who now serves as the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, condemned “the abhorrent racial animus displayed today.” Multiple national media outlets ran with the story under the same framing – as indisputable fact – without independently verifying the allegation.

Headlines and tweets posted by several heavily trafficked outlets and prominent reporters repeatedly lacked any qualifiers – such as “allegedly” or “purportedly” – to indicate to readers that the accusations had not been confirmed.

When the team investigation did wrap up, it ultimately found that the unidentified fan was “indeed yelling for Rockies mascot Dinger, in hopes of getting his attention for a photo, and there was never any racial slur that occurred.”

But that’s likely little consolation for the fan who was “sold out” by the Rockies’ rush to judgement, according to Juda Engelmayer, a crisis manager and president of HeraldPR.

“They jumped into it,” he said. “But they jumped into it irresponsibly. The team has the responsibility of making sure it is right before they do anything.”

Engelmayer said the team was probably quick to condemn the alleged incident with the intent to protect its brand and players. He said the team should have waited, however, and said it was not prepared to comment until the investigation concluded.

“I think the team ultimately did the right thing, but they handled things wrong at first,” he said. “It’s a tricky time we are living in and no one knows how to handle things so they don’t get ‘canceled.’ We are a little too overly sensitive looking for the charlatan, looking for the problem, looking for the sensationalism.”

Ivan Parron, a sports attorney and sports law professor at Florida International University, said that, even though the Rockies ended up facing a stiff backlash for jumping to conclusions, he isn’t surprised by the initial action taken by the team or the MLBPA.

“Unfortunately, in the times that we live in, from a sporting organization standpoint, when it comes to crisis management, they are going to err on the side that will have less backlash if they are wrong,” he said. “It’s sad for this individual that he got caught in the middle of this.”

The sporting world has become the “center of where all of our social issues are laundered through,” Parron said, and that means anything sensational related to sports is “automatically news,” which led to the story going viral almost immediately.

Parron said the fan may have a legal case if he can prove his reputation was sullied, though, proving damages can be difficult. If he does so, Engelmayer said the Rockies ultimately bear responsibility for accusing the fan.

“In my field, you say it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and 30 seconds to destroy it,” he said. “This guy’s face has been all over.”

The fan wasn’t identified in any official statement, however, images of him sitting at the game and calling for the mascot were widely disseminated on social media. While the fan will likely be able to explain the situation to family and friends, Engelmayer said there’s no guarantee the general audience will care – or even hear – about the mix-up.

“It’s not fair and it’s not right,” he said.

Digital marketing expert Adam Rizzieri said he “can’t imagine” how that fan is feeling after being accused of such loathsome behavior.

“I know people who have been canceled for less, literally innocent people.” he said. “It’s what gets people fired and suspended from their jobs. It’s a toxic reality. You never know what can happen to you when you are exposed online.”

Before the Rockies concluded the investigation, several players, commentators, and reporters brutally ripped the fan for what later turned out to be a misheard word.

Some quickly walked back their comments after the probe was completed.

“I personally apologize for jumping to conclusions,” tweeted Adam Jones, a former All-Star player who’s spoken about his own experience being berated by racial taunts from fans while in the outfield. “I felt, and many heard, something vile and nasty. It’s not the case. So I apologize to him and his family. Know when you’re wrong and apologize.”

But even after the Rockies issued a muted statement clearing the fan of any wrongdoing, social media posts repeating the false racial slur accusation continued to circulate on Twitter and other platforms. Despite social media platforms’ vow to crack down on posts containing “misinformation,” Rizzieri said the truth is it’s “impossible for Twitter to check every post for ‘misinformation.’”

He said Twitter has acknowledged that it “won’t address all misinformation” and that it gauges what posts it will flag based on the “severity” of the content.

While labeling a man a racist seems severe enough to garner some sort of action from Twitter, Rizzieri said the “system isn’t designed to protect one person, and that’s a problem.”

“Twitter is really full of fake news,” he said. “And bad news can spread really, really fast.”

He said people are more likely to fall for and share fake news because it tends to be more “sensational and emotional.”

“The real news is just not that interesting,” he said. “A fan yells at a mascot, who cares?”

Rizzieri added: “People fall for things that aren’t really what they seem. And it’s really a tragedy.”

© 2021 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

© 2021 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

A panel stocked with anonymous content-moderation “judges” upheld Facebook’s ban of former President Donald Trump while also leaving the door open slightly to have that ruling revised in six months, but no matter what the group ruled, Trump was poised to claim victory – as the vindicated or the victim.

The social media giant, which froze Trump’s account in the wake of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach, cited a pair of Trump posts as having violated Facebook rules and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed Trump’s posts were meant to “undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.”

But while Twitter – which suspended Trump on Jan. 6 and booted him from the platform Jan. 8 – acted quickly, Facebook waited until Jan. 21 to announce that the company’s oversight board would render Trump’s ultimate Facebook fate — though that board then kicked the can down the road a bit more on Wednesday morning. The determination by the board also applies to Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

Few of those experts and analysts who’d been hotly watching the drama play out pretended to know which way the board would rule before the odd 9 a.m. decision – but they all acknowledged how momentous the decision was likely to end up being.

“It’s a big day,” said Andrew Selepak, a social media professor at the University of Florida. “The oversight board is looking at something of great significance. This is obviously something that is vastly different from any decision they have made in the past in terms of size and scope.”

Dallas-based digital marketing expert Adam Rizzieri said the board’s verdict was a tossup.

“It really is a coin toss,” he said. “I give it a 50/50.”

If Trump was reinstated, Selepak predicted the president would do a “victory lap” of vindication against big tech and pressure other platforms that banned him to follow Facebook’s lead.

Aside from Twitter, Trump was also booted from other popular platforms, including Twitch, Snapchat and YouTube. On Tuesday evening, his website launched a new page that allowed one-way communication – in real time – from the 45th president at donaldjtrump.com/desk. Notably, Trump’s posts have a social share tool that allows users to push the messages onto Facebook and Twitter.

But the ban being upheld, however, may have represented an even bigger win for Trump.
Selepak expects a Republican-led backlash to be launched against big tech, which has been increasingly accused of silencing conservative voices.

“Being deplatformed makes Trump a victim of social media and gives him a greater voice against it than if he was simply allowed back on,” Selepak said.

Rizzieri agreed that a decision upholding the ban could add “much fuel to the fire” that already exists when it comes to creating new social media platforms and placing more scrutiny on big tech, in general.

And though Twitter “permanently” banned Trump months ago and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said in March that the video platform would reactivate Trump’s account only when it was “safe” to do so, those sites and others may be pressured to quickly re-evaluate their decisions if Facebook goes against the grain six months from now, when the company is due to reevaluate its decision.

“If Facebook indicates that they are going to allow him access to his accounts again, it will be very difficult for Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube to say we are still not,” Selepak said.

Facebook created its 20-member oversight board through an endowment it funded. The board and its bylaws were put in place last year, and members come from different countries and a range of professional backgrounds – including lawyers, human-rights advocates, former politicians, and journalists.

In the big picture, the board is tasked with determining whether Facebook correctly followed its policies in either leaving up or taking down content or accounts from the platform. Cases, which are either referred to the board by Facebook or from an individual user via a petition, are reviewed and adjudicated by five of the members.

The group of five who render the decision remain secret.

Once the small anonymous group comes to an agreement, their decision must be approved by a majority of the full board. In the case of a major disagreement, the process restarts under a new panel.

Once a ruling is reached, it’s binding, and Facebook has agreed to abide by the panel’s decision. The board may also recommend policies for Facebook to implement. But in the case of proposed rule changes, it’s up to Facebook officials to decide if new policies – or changes to existing rules – should be enacted.

“Irrespective of the decision, Facebook is looking to the committee for a policy recommendation on how they will ban or not ban world leaders moving forward,” Rizzieri said. “That gives the company the ability to say how they will make decisions moving forward.”

One thing social media experts do agree on is that, no matter which way the ruling goes, there will be plenty of scrutiny over the faceless group rendering the decision.

Rizzieri said while the oversight board’s members are generally respectable, educated, and influential people, the fact that only five total members are American could cause pushback. The interpretation of free speech varies among countries – but Facebook is based in America.

“Do we really want decisions that influence how we view free speech determined by this ‘social media supreme court’ that isn’t fully American?” Rizzieri said. “We really have no idea what might influence someone from a totally different country to make a decision about a policy or law.”

So far, the board has mostly reviewed posts made by users that most people don’t know. But in this case, the board was tasked with determining the fate of a former U.S. president who had some 35 million followers when his account was suspended and may run again for the highest office in the land in 2024.

Rizzieri said the board considered the following questions during its deliberations:

• Did the content violate Facebook’s policies?
• Did the removal of the content respect human rights standards like freedom of expression?
• What was the intent behind the post?
• Did the user understand Facebook’s terms and rules?

He said the board also takes into consideration nuances of the language used in the post and any surrounding context. It also took some time to review the more than 9,000 public comments that users submitted about the case.

In fact, that flood of public comments led the board to delay its original 90-day deadline to decide Trump’s fate.
Initial rulings issued by the oversight board earlier this year indicated they weren’t afraid to overturn Facebook’s content-moderation decisions. The board has overturned decisions in five of the seven cases it has ruled on so far.

“This independent oversight board is not a bobblehead nodding an affirmation for what Facebook is doing, just looking at how they judged their first five cases,” Rizzieri said.

Despite that demonstrated independence, if Selepak had to place a bet, he wagered the ban would be upheld.
“If I was to place some Las Vegas bet on it, the easiest thing for the board to do is uphold the deplatforming now that [Trump] is a private citizen,” he said. “What is the justification for lifting the ban? Allowing a private citizen the ability to go back on social media because he has a large following?”

Because Trump is now a private citizen, Selepak said Facebook can more easily justify its decision to uphold the ban by arguing he isn’t entitled to the same leeway as a sitting world leader.

Rizzieri completely disagrees. He saw a decision that allowed Trump to rejoin Facebook as the “path of least resistance.”

“If the decision is one that says we are going to keep Trump off of Facebook and uphold the ban, there will be a lot of attention on who is on that oversight board,” he said.

And if Trump does choose to run for office again, Facebook could be forced to reconsider any ban that may be in place at that time. The company has pledged to not limit the voice of any candidate running for office.

Facebook has typically adhered to its policy of not removing a world leader or sitting official from the platform. But it has taken down posts and suspended accounts of sitting world leaders such as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Rizzieri believes there is “no way” Facebook could sustain its ban if Trump were on the ticket in 2024 or became president in 2025.

A new Florida bill, which is expected to be signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, would actually fine social media companies that knowingly deplatform a political candidate. Under the proposed law, suspensions up to 14 days for rule violations would be allowed, however, and posts that break any terms of service could be deleted.

But the state’s elections commission would be able to fine a social media company $250,000 a day for statewide candidates and $25,000 a day for other candidates if a company’s actions are found to violate the law.

Even if Trump’s account was reinstated, regardless of whether or not he is running for office, Selepak noted he could have faced other sanctions, such as seeing a dip in his posts’ reach.

“There is no guarantee [Facebook] wouldn’t ‘shadow ban’ him or put warning labels on posts and limit his reach and voice,” he said. “These tech companies are very powerful because they can limit anyone’s voice.”

Even if Facebook did reinstate Trump and then use its algorithm to limit the reach of the former president’s posts, it’s something that Selepak said is very difficult to prove is taking place because users have no ability to “look under the hood” to see how the platform operates internally.

“They have the ability through their platforms to downgrade the posts,” he said. “They can do whatever they want to limit the reach of his posts using their algorithm. Posts may not get the reach they had in the past.”

Regardless of the outcome, Rizzieri said big tech can expect Congress to make some noise about how social media companies make content moderation decisions.

Already, there have been several attempts to look at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which gives social media companies immunity from liability, from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Democrats want to go after the protection in order to curb the spread of what they say is disinformation, while Republicans rail against alleged censorship.

“Weekly, there is a new effort to overhaul, rewrite, or undercut Section 230,” Rizzieri said. “There is bipartisan support for a change to the overall system, but there hasn’t been a perfect solution proposed.

“Whether Trump is allowed back on Facebook or the ban is upheld, some sort of regulation is inevitable. The real question is: To what extent?”