U.S. judge dismisses Trump’s lawsuit challenging his Twitter ban

By Jan Wolfe

11:41 JST, May 7, 2022

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Friday dismissed former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter Inc TWTR.N that challenged his suspension from the platform.

In a written ruling, U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco rejected Trump’s argument that Twitter violated his right to freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Twitter and other social media platforms banned Trump from their services after a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in a deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

That assault followed a speech by Trump in which he reiterated false claims that his election loss in November was because of widespread fraud, an assertion rejected by multiple courts and state election officials.

Trump’s lawyers alleged in a court filing last year that Twitter “exercises a degree of power and control over political discourse in this country that is immeasurable, historically unprecedented, and profoundly dangerous to open democratic debate.”

At the time of removing Trump’s account permanently, Twitter said his tweets had violated the platform’s policy barring “glorification of violence.” The company said then that Trump’s tweets that led to his removal were “highly likely” to encourage people to replicate what happened in the Capitol riots.

Before he was blocked, Trump had more than 88 million followers on Twitter and used it as his social media megaphone.