Former President Donald Trump has announced plans to sue Facebook, Twitter, Google, and their CEOs as he called for an end to “un-American” cancel culture.
The former president announced the class-action lawsuits against tech bosses Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai in a press briefing on Wednesday in which he accused them of “destroying our country.”
The Sun reports: Trump received a permanent suspension from his favored social media platform Twitter earlier this year after the violence of the Capitol riot on January 6.
He also has a two-year suspension from Facebook and was hit with bans from Snapchat and YouTube, among others, this year.
Trump has raged that he is being “censored” by the social media giants and has repeatedly claimed he plans to set up his own rival platform where conservatives are not targeted.
The former president scheduled the news conference on Wednesday morning from Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey, where he is spending the summer.
The class-action lawsuit will allow Trump to sue the CEOs on behalf of a broader group of people he claims have been censored by biased policies.
“We will hold big tech very accountable,” Trump said as he accused them of a “flagrant violation of the constitution” in “silencing” and “shadowbanning” conservatives.
He branded social media sites as the “de facto arm of censorship by the federal government” and said they had been “weaponized.”
The legal effort is supported by the America First Policy Institute, a non-profit focused on perpetuating Trump’s policies.
Trump has not yet presented substantial evidence that Twitter and Facebook are biased against conservatives.
The lawsuit announcement is the latest escalation in the years-long conflict between him and tech leaders, especially after his relationship with Zuckerberg soured.
