On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that former President Donald Trump’s legal effort to get his Twitter account reactivated should be transferred from Florida to California.
In January, President Trump was suspended from Twitter after the US Capitol incident. According to Twitter, the decision was made “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” In July, Trump filed a lawsuit challenging the Twitter suspension.
Trump loses attempts to sue Twitter in Florida
Twitter‘s motion to transfer the case was granted by U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr. on Tuesday, with Trump’s claim that he is exempt from Twitter’s terms of service because he was a sitting president when his account was deactivated and legally unable to accept a forum selection clause being rejected. The clause, which all Twitter users must agree to in order to use the service, states that legal disputes between Twitter users will be resolved in the Northern District Court of California.
Scola’s ruling reads: “Even assuming that Trump was using his account in his official capacity, Trump has not advanced any legal authority to support his contention that he satisfies the second requirement of the exemption: that he is ‘legally unable to accept the controlling law, jurisdiction, or venue clauses…”
Scola concluded that the lawsuit against Trump “has no bearing on the proceedings at hand because it did not consider the enforceability of Twitter’s forum selection clause, particularly, whether Trump was exempted from its requirements in his capacity as president.”
Trump’s use of Twitter revolutionized politics by allowing him to break away from the conventional media and attempt to gain control of the narrative. Following the US Capitol Hill riot in January, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube banned him from their platform.
Trump sued those platforms, claiming censorship and First Amendment infractions, despite the fact that the First Amendment protects individuals rather than private companies.
While those suits work their way through the court system, Trump declared last week that he plans to launch a rival social network called Truth Social.
You can download Scola’s ruling from this link.
