YouTube Pays $24.5 Million to End Legal Dispute with President Donald Trump
YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit with President Donald Trump, related to the suspension of his account following the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021…
This makes YouTube the last major tech company to “back down” to President Trump after the high-profile legal battle that began in 2021.
According to documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, YouTube, the video platform owned by Google, will pay $22 million to the Donald J. Trump White House Dance Fund and $2.5 million to the other co-plaintiffs in exchange for the withdrawal of all claims.
According to the British newspaper Independent, the total amount President Trump has received from these settlements has now exceeded $80 million. Previously, Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) and X (formerly Twitter) also chose to settle earlier this year, even though President Trump’s accounts had already been reinstated.
In January, Meta paid $25 million to close its lawsuit. Then, in February, Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) also agreed to a settlement for approximately $10 million.
It’s not just social media; major media companies have also had to concede. Last July, Paramount, the company that owns CBS News, paid $16 million to settle a similar lawsuit.
The dispute originated in early 2021. On January 6, 2021, when a far-right crowd attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the election results, YouTube and many other platforms simultaneously suspended Trump’s accounts due to concerns over the risk of inciting violence.
Mid-2021, he and his allies filed lawsuits against the social media platforms, arguing that the account suspensions violated his right to freedom of speech.
The situation only began to change earlier this year. In January, Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, agreed to pay $25 million to settle. By February, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter), also agreed to pay $10 million to resolve the matter.
The peak came in May, when Google CEO Sundar Pichai and co-founder Sergey Brin reportedly visited President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where they played golf and reached an agreement.
Google later reported to the court that the two sides had held “productive exchanges” to bring the lawsuit to a close.
However, many judges and legal experts argue that the lawsuits lacked merit, as tech companies are also protected by the Constitution in their right to regulate their own platforms.
Source: VNeconomy
