Former President Donald Trump announced a class-action lawsuit today against Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for his suspension from their platforms following the deadly pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Trump’s lawsuit is full of questionable (at best) legal reasoning, has little chance of success, and appears to contradict previous arguments he has made about his social media accounts. It is a frivolous suit that is, as Adi Robertson writes for The Verge, “based on an amalgamation of mostly untested or disregarded legal arguments.”
Nonetheless, mainstream print media outlets treated the lawsuit as a serious legal endeavor by the former president. (Most outlets also reported that Trump immediately began fundraising off of the suit, suggesting another potential motivation for filing it.)
Axios, which broke the news of this lawsuit prior to Trump’s announcement, never once mentioned that the suit is frivolous. In fact, the outlet appeared to praise Trump for following through with a lawsuit and noted that “actions targeting Big Tech platforms serve as ammunition for Trump's conservative base.”
The Wall Street Journal prominently featured the story on its home page, directly under coverage of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination. The article discussed Trump’s assertions and eventually quoted an attorney who called the lawsuit “irremediably frivolous” -- but not until the 11th paragraph, buried near the end of the piece.
The New York Times acknowledged the lawsuit may be a “publicity play,” but not until its 11th paragraph. The Times’ headline, however, did note that Trump was already fundraising off the case.
