Benzinga | Jul 7, 2021 11:32AM EDT

Trump To Sue Zuckerberg, Dorsey And Pichai Over Social Media Banishment

Former President Donald Trump is bringing class action lawsuits against Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai over his banishment from their respective social media platforms.

What Happened: In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill, Twitter permanently banned Trump from its platform, while Facebook initially enforced an indefinite ban before deciding on a two-year ban that will end on Jan. 7, 2023.

The lawsuits, which were first reported by Axios, are supported by the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit with a mission of advancing the former president's public policy.

The nonprofit's CEO is Linda McMahon, the former WWE (NYSE:WWE) chief executive who served as administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration under Trump, and attorney Brooke Rollins, who was acting director of the U.S. Domestic Policy Council during the Trump administration.

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Why It Matters: Trump and his supporters have argued that the social media platforms are biased against U.S. conservatives and fail to apply their terms of service evenly, pointing out that postings by Iranian leadership calling for the destruction of the U.S. and Israel are not subject to censorship.

During his presidency, Trump tried but failed to scrap Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which enables the social media platforms to enjoy the ability to regulate content on their platforms while receiving immunity from third party content published on their sites.

Big tech censorship is a major issue among conservative politicians. A Florida law backed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis prohibiting social media platforms from banning political candidates from their services was blocked last week in federal court before it took effect. A similar law was proposed by the Texas legislature with Gov. Greg Abbott's backing, but stalled in the House after passing the Senate.

Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr Creative Commons.