Donald Trump Asks US Judge To Reinstate Twitter Account

Donald Trump asked a US judge to order Twitter to restore his account, which the former US President used as his main communication channel before, and during his presidency.

Trump argues Twitter’s permanent ban violates Florida’s new ‘deplatforming law’, which prevents social media platforms from banning politicians.

This law was introduced in May, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed the controversial state bill.

Court application

However, this ‘deplatforming’ law is not currently in force due a court decision that said it violates the free speech rights of social networking companies to host the content they want to host.

But that has not stopped Trump from asking a federal judge in Florida to force social media giant Twitter to restore his account.

Trump’s attorneys last Friday filed a motion in US district court in Miami seeking a preliminary injunction against Twitter and its CEO, Jack Dorsey, the Guardian reported.

They argued that Twitter is censoring Trump in violation of his First Amendment rights, according to the motion.

Trump filed lawsuits in the US district court for the southern district of Florida in July against all three tech companies and their CEOs.

He claimed at the time that he and other conservatives have been wrongfully censored.

Trump ban

Trump was well known for his use of Twitter.

His tweets often inspired ridicule and anger, but he also posted content that was at times racist and provocative.

But karma eventually caught up, when Donald Trump was banned on many social networking platforms for his role in inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol building on Wednesday 6 January, which resulted in the deaths of five people (including one police officer who was beaten to death).

In the immediate aftermath, Facebook banned Trump for 24 hours, but as the full scale of the attempted insurrection became clear, it then suspended his accounts for longer.

Indeed, Trump’s Facebook ban will last two years, until 7 January 2023, after which the company will review his suspension.

YouTube and Twitter also initially banned Trump for a limited period of time, but YouTube then suspended Trump’s account indefinitely.

Twitter also opted to permanently ban Trump from its platform.

Before the ban, Trump had roughly 89 million followers on Twitter.

After leaving office Donald Trump launched a website to publish content ‘straight from the desk’ of the former president.

But after only one month of operation, Donald Trump closed down the website.

He has been relying on traditional published statements to get his voice heard, or uses interviews with favoured television outlets such as Fox News.