WASHINGTON: Former US president Donald Trump on Wednesday unveiled a lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google, escalating his years-long free speech battle with tech giants who he argues have wrongfully censored him.
“I’m filing, as the lead class representative, a major class-action lawsuit against the big tech giants including Facebook, Google and Twitter as well as their CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey — three real nice guys,” Trump announced at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The nation’s top tech firms have become the “enforcers of illegal, unconstitutional censorship,” added the 75-year-old Republican, who was banned from posting on Facebook and Twitter after his repeated false claims of 2020 election fraud fueled the violent January 6 siege of the US Capitol by his supporters.
Trump is being joined in the suit by the America First Policy Institute. They have invited thousands of citizens who have been “de-platformed” from social media sites to sign on.
“We are standing up for American democracy by standing up for free speech rights of every American — Democrat, Republican, independent, whoever it may be,” Trump said. “This lawsuit is just the beginning.”
Legal experts say the case — which may or may not be deemed a class action, a designation granted by a court and not just declared by a litigant — is unlikely to gain traction.
But Trump’s team and the Repubican National Committee were quick to fundraise off of it.
Trump filed the complaints in US District Court in southern Florida, where he is seeking an immediate halt to censorship, blacklisting and what he called the “canceling” of people who share his political views.
He stressed he is not looking for any sort of a settlement. “We’re in a fight that we’re going to win,” he said.
The suit comes amid efforts by Congress to curb the powers of big tech. Last month the House of Representatives advanced sweeping reforms of antitrust laws aimed at the business practices of Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook.
Facebook banned Trump indefinitely on January 7 over his incendiary comments that preceded the Capitol insurrection.
Twitter quickly followed, permanently suspending Trump’s account due to the “risk of further incitement of violence.”
In June, following a review by Facebook’s independent oversight board, Facebook narrowed the ban to two years.
Trump said YouTube and its parent organization Google have deleted “countless videos” including many addressing the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
The billionaire, his allies and many supporters say the ban on Trump and others amount to censorship and abuse of power.
“There is no better evidence that big tech is out of control than the fact that they banned the sitting president of the United States,” Trump said.
Trump, his political campaigns and the Trump Organization have been involved in more than 3,000 legal cases in the past 30 years. Legal experts give this one little chance of succeeding.
The US Constitution’s First Amendment “constrains only government actors, not private entities,” Eric Goldman, director of the High-Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, told AFP, adding that dozens of other similar cases failed decisively.
In the complaint against Facebook, Trump argues that big tech’s cooperative work with federal authorities effectively shifts their status from private company to state actor.
“As such, Defendant is constrained by the First Amendment right to free speech in the censorship decisions it makes regarding its Users,” the complaint states.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association, of which Facebook, Google and Twitter are members, said digital services have the right to enforce their terms of service.
“Frivolous class action litigation will not change the fact that users — even US presidents — have to abide by the rules they agreed to,” CCIA President Matt Schruers said.
Trump has begun holding public events, including campaign-style rallies, as he seeks to remain the nation’s most influential Republican.
He has teased a potential 2024 presidential run but has made no announcement on his political future.
Trump announces anti-censorship lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter
https://arab.news/znzsh
Trump announces anti-censorship lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter
- Trump: The nation’s top tech firms have become the “enforcers of illegal, unconstitutional censorship”
- Trump is being joined in the suit by the America First Policy Institute
To infinity and beyond: Grendizer’s 50 years of inspiring Arabs
- 50 years after its creation, the Grendizer anime series continues to capture Arab imagination
- Arab News Japan speaks to creator Go Nagai, Middle Eastern fans and retells the story behind the UFO Robot tasked with protecting our planet
LONDON: Few cultural imports have crossed borders as unexpectedly, or as powerfully, as Grendizer, the Japanese giant robot that half a century ago became a childhood hero across the Arab world, nowhere more so than in Saudi Arabia.
Created in Japan in the mid-1970s by manga artist Go Nagai, Grendizer was part of the “mecha” tradition of giant robots. The genre was shaped by Japan’s experience during the Second World War, and explored themes of invasion, resistance and loss through the medium of science fiction.
But while the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East.
The anime “UFO Robot Grendizer” arrived on television in the region in 1979, dubbed into Arabic and initially broadcast in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. The story it told of the heroic Duke Fleed, a displaced prince whose planet had been destroyed by alien invaders, struck a chord with children growing up amid regional conflict and occupation by Israel.
Its themes of defending one’s homeland, standing up to aggression and protecting the innocent were painfully relevant in the region, transforming the series from mere entertainment into a kind of emotional refuge.
Much of the show’s impact came from its successful Arabization. The powerful Arabic dubbing and emotionally charged voice-acting, especially by Lebanese actor Jihad El-Atrash as Duke Fleed, lent the show a moral gravity unmatched by other cartoons of the era.
The theme song for the series, performed by Sami Clark, became an anthem that the Lebanese singer continued to perform at concerts and festivals right up until his death in 2022.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. For many, it was not only their first exposure to anime, it also delivered lessons on values such as justice and honor.
Grendizer was so influential in the region that it became the subject of scholarly research, which in addition to recognizing the ways in which the plight of the show’s characters resonated with the audience in the Middle East, also linked the show’s popularity to generational memories of displacement, particularly the Palestinian Nakba.
Half a century later, “Grendizer” remains culturally alive and relevant in the region. In Saudi Arabia, which embraced the original version of the show wholeheartedly, Manga Productions is now introducing a new generation of fans to a modernized version of the character, through a video game, The Feast of The Wolves, which is available in Arabic and eight other languages on platforms including PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and a new Arabic-language anime series, “Grendizer U,” which was broadcast last year.
Fifty years after the debut of the show, “Grendizer” is back — although to a generation of fans of the original series, their shelves still full of merchandise and memorabilia, it never really went away.
