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YouTube has decided to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by President Trump over the suspension of his account in 2021, The New York Times reports.
YouTube suspended Trump’s account after the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, over concerns that his content could incite more violence. Similar bans were imposed by Facebook, Instagram, and X (then Twitter). Trump then sued the owners and CEOs of all three platforms, accusing them of unlawfully censoring him.
Earlier this year, after Trump returned to the White House, Meta and X settled their lawsuits by paying $25 million and $10 million, respectively. YouTube has now followed suit by agreeing to pay $24.5 million. Of that, $22 million will go toward the construction of a new ballroom at the White House, while $2.5 million will be awarded to the other plaintiffs in the case, such as writer Naomi Wolf and the American Conservative Union.
Trump’s accounts were reinstated on X after Elon Musk took over the company in 2022, and on YouTube and Meta’s platforms in 2023.
The First Amendment protects people from government censorship, but private companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter are largely free to police their own platforms and ban those who violate their terms of service. (Hence why the FCC’s involvement in the Jimmy Kimmel suspension was so notable). However, some companies have opted to settle rather than fight Trump in court.
That includes Paramount, which agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit against CBS News because Trump was mad they edited a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. (The FCC subsequently approved a merger that Paramount had been waiting for.)
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ABC also paid Trump $15 million after host George Stephanopoulos said Trump had been “found liable for rape” and “defaming the victim of that rape.” Trump was actually found liable of sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.
Trump, meanwhile, is also pursuing a defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over articles linking him to Jeffrey Epstein.
Last week, YouTube announced that it would restore channels it had banned for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 election.
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Jibin is a tech news writer based out of Ahmedabad, India. Previously, he served as the editor of iGeeksBlog and is a self-proclaimed tech enthusiast who loves breaking down complex information for a broader audience.
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