(JustPatriots.com)- Former President Donald Trump’s decision to sue Big Tech could be more effective than you think. It doesn’t matter if the system is stacked up against conservatives when Trump’s argument is legally and Constitutionally sound…
The former president’s lawsuit argues that Twitter, Google, and Facebook are violating the First Amendment by banning people from their platforms. And while it’s easy to assume that the argument doesn’t stand, given that Facebook, Twitter, and Google are not the government…there’s more to it than that.
Trump is actually arguing that Big Tech is acting on behalf of the government.
Several previous cases have set precedents that will help this case succeed. Norwood v. Harrison, for instance, previously found that a program in Mississippi that gave textbooks to private schools was unconstitutional because the government cannot deputize a private actor. The Supreme Court ruled that the state cannot “induce, encourage or promote” a private person or actor to accomplish something that is Constitutionally forbidden.
Another ruling in Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association found that it was unconstitutional for a private company to require federal railroad employees to take drug tests. The mandates tests constituted state action as they were being pushed by the state.
These cases are relevant because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which provides legal protection to social media platforms. It means that Big Tech can’t be sued for content posted by third parties on their platforms.
Under the Good Samaritan provision in the law, platforms are legally protected for taking action taken in “good faith” to “restrict access to or availability of material” that the platform considers “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.”
In short, it means that Big Tech is protected from being sued if they take down content that they just do not like.
In Trump’s lawsuit, he cites the Norwood case and explains how Section 230 immunity makes Big Tech a state actor when censoring content. The suit also points to a number of Democratic lawmakers who have urged Big Tech to remove people from the platform, including former President Trump himself.
Even Kamala Harris did it in September last year.
Assuming President Biden doesn’t pack the Supreme Court before this case reaches the highest court in the land, this could be the end of Big Tech censorship.
