Parler Supports Trump-Led First Amendment Lawsuit Against Big Tech
Class action suit calls out Facebook and Twitter, including their CEOs
Today, former President Donald Trump announced a class action lawsuit against Facebook and Twitter, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, for violating his First Amendment rights, due to bans imposed on him and others.
Parler applauds President Trump for this action because we are on the same side with respect to two crucial issues:
First, there is something very wrong normatively about these platforms’ biased, authoritarian content-moderation policies. Individuals should not be outsourcing their critical thinking skills to anyone — much less agenda-driven tech executives.
Second, given these problems have been worsened due to an overbroad interpretation of Section 230, combined with pressure from politicians and bureaucrats to exploit Section 230 immunity in service of a particular political agenda, there *is* censorship taking place, and Parler believes some form of government intervention is appropriate to rectify the situation.
Moreover, we believe it needs rectification in a way that does not further entangle government with tech platforms — platforms that both serve as vehicles for dissemination of crucial information, and, unfortunately in the case of many of the leading platforms, repositories for vast troves of personal information about individuals. If we address this problem in the wrong way, a way that enlarges the sphere of cronyism between government and tech platforms, then we risk creating a Big Brother that would have our Founding Fathers spinning in their graves.
Because a lawsuit like President Trump’s has the potential to result in a narrower interpretation of Section 230, as Justice Thomas has suggested in Malware Bytes vs. Enigma, and to do so without the unintended consequences of establishing a further entanglement between politicians and tech platforms, it is perhaps the perfect vehicle by which this problem can be solved.
We wish President Trump and his legal team all the best and would be happy to offer Parler’s assistance in any way.
Parler is the world’s premier viewpoint-neutral social media platform, dedicated to freedom of expression and independent thought.
