YouTube to pay Trump $22 million for suspending his account after Jan. 6 riot
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YouTube agreed to pay President Trump $24.5 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit after the company suspended his account. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
YouTube has agreed to pay President Trump $22 million to settle his 2021 lawsuit, which he filed after the company suspended his account following the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.
Driving the news: In addition, YouTube will pay $2.5 million to the other plaintiffs on the case, which include the American Conservative Union and writer Naomi Wolf.
- According to the court filing, Trump's $22 million award will go into a trust to help fund his White House ballroom renovation project, which carries an estimated $200 million price tag.
- Google declined to comment on the case.
Flashback: Trump sued Meta, X and Google over their moves to suspend his accounts on their platforms in 2021, alleging their actions were "unconstitutional" and violated his First Amendment rights.
- X described Trump's presence on the platform at the time as a "risk of further incitement of violence."
Reality check: The First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting free speech, not private companies.
- At the time, legal experts and First Amendment scholars said Trump's suits were unlikely to go far.
- "The First Amendment simply protects citizens from government censorship," Syracuse University associate professor Roy Gutterman told Axios' Sara Fischer in 2021. "Social media platforms exercise great power, but they are not a branch of government."
Catch up quick: Meta and X have both settled their lawsuits already. ABC and CBS have both settled lawsuits that legal experts called baseless.
Our thought bubble: For these companies, settling lawsuits is often considered less distracting and sometimes less costly than seeing a case all the way through to a trial, Fischer said.
- Redstone Family Foundation chair Shari Redstone, formerly the chair of Paramount Global, told Axios earlier this month that CBS settling with Trump was "absolutely" the right thing to do.
- "It took up way too much time in the news, which really had an impact on our employees, on our ability to do other transactions," she said.
Zoom out: YouTube has been acquiescing to the Trump admin more broadly as well.
- The Trump admin has recently had its knives out for YouTube TV, with FCC Chair Brendan Carr pressuring the service to resolve its dispute with Fox, which it eventually did.
- YouTube also announced this month that it will launch a process to reinstate accounts of content creators who have been banned for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 election.
