Former President Donald Trump is appealing the dismissal of his lawsuit against Twitter, alleging a violation of his free speech rights for being banned from the platform.
Trump filed a notice of appeal with the federal court in San Francisco on Monday, saying he will take the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The former president first accused Twitter of violating his First Amendment rights after his account was permanently disabled two days after the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
On that day, several thousand demonstrators gathered at the U.S. Capitol to protest the election of Joe Biden while a joint session of Congress to certify electoral votes was taking place. The certification was delayed several hours when some of the protesters entered the Capitol building, forcing a lockdown while lawmakers were evacuated.
Twitter said it barred the former president from the platform for violating its “glorification of violence” policy.
The company alleged that a speech Trump delivered near the U.S. Capitol on January 6 encouraged the protesters to breach the Capitol.
Twitter also claimed that the former president could incite more events like January 6 with future tweets. Trump was a frequent user of Twitter, posting several times a day to his 88 million followers.
Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube also suspended Trump from their platforms after the events on January 6, 2021.
Facebook said in June 2021 that it may soon lift its suspension, allowing Trump to use Facebook and Instagram again in January 2023.
YouTube has stated previously that it would lift its ban when the “risk of violence has decreased.”
Trump filed lawsuits against all three social media companies that banned him on July 7, 2021. The suits were initially filed in Florida, but a federal judge transferred all three cases to California because of the social media platforms’ terms of service, which require all legal disputes with them to be handled in California.
The cases against Facebook and YouTube are still pending in lower federal courts.
The companies were “working directly with government actors to censor free speech,” Trump’s lawsuits claim, citing Facebook’s alleged ties to the government, its restrictions on claims of widespread election fraud during the 2020 election, and its removal of posts touting hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19 as evidence.
The 45th U.S. president added that social media controlling the political discourse was “destroying the country.”
Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter was dismissed in May by U.S. District Judge James Donato from San Francisco.
Donato said that the former president could not prove that Twitter was acting on behalf of government officials when it banned him for tweets that the social media platform said violated its policy.
The judge noted that private companies are not bound by the Constitution’s First Amendment the way the government is, so Trump was “not starting from a position of strength.”
Despite filing an appeal, the former president remains committed to not returning to Twitter even if his ban is lifted or Elon Musk completes his takeover of the platform.
Musk has said he plans to make Twitter a forum for free speech and lift the ban on Trump, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Still, Trump stated he would remain on his own social media platform, Truth Social, which he founded after being permanently banned from Twitter.
The date the appeal hearing will begin is not yet known.
