Twitter says Trump doesn't understand 'free speech'

Trump really misses Twitter but Twitter really doesn't miss him.

In July, former-President Donald Trump announced a class action lawsuit against Big Tech companies – namely Facebook, Google, and Twitter – and its CEOs for, the suit alleges, violating the First Amendment when these outlets banned him from their platform following the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. (Months later, Trump also filed another lawsuit against Twitter in an attempt to get his account back.)

While the lawsuit was being propped up by Trump as a fundraising effort, the tech companies are obviously taking it seriously.

Twitter is now asking a federal judge to toss the case, as reported by Bloomberg. The social media company says Trump doesn't understand the First Amendment or free speech, and that Twitter's rights are what's actually being threatened here.

According to a federal court filing, Twitter and its former CEO Jack Dorsey argue "that Twitter is a private actor that is not constrained by the federal constitution." As such, Twitter can make decisions as to what content is allowed to be posted on its site. In fact, the company says that Trump "agreed to abide by Twitte's rules, and yet proceeded to repeatedly violate those rules."

Twitter's filing again lays out why Twitter banned Trump too, saying how the former president repeatedly tweeted false information about the 2020 vote, violating the company's policies. Trump continued to threaten the peaceful transfer of power, forcing the company to take further action by booting him from the platform.

"The government cannot force the private operator of an online platform, such as Twitter, to disseminate speech with which the operator disagrees," argues Twitter in its filing.

It's been just over 11 months since supporters of former-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol building in Washington DC in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election. In the days following the event, multiple online platforms suspended or outright banned Trump.

Since then, Trump has tried to carve out his own space online. He started and quickly ended a little-trafficked blog. And, most recently, he announced a new social media platform of his own, TRUTH Social. While TRUTH has yet to officially launch, its already had its own issues, such as licensing issues and trolls, who defaced the unreleased version of the platform.