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YouTube Banned Trump’s Account From Uploading New Videos From January 2021 To March 2023
Alphabet-owned YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit involving the suspension of President Donald Trump’s account following the US Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021. Google becomes the third big tech company, after Meta and X, to resolve lawsuits brought by Trump in July 2021. Trump accused tech companies of unlawfully silencing conservative viewpoints.
Trump vs YouTube Drama
YouTube suspended Trump from uploading new videos on his YouTube channel in 2021 for releasing a video defending remarks he made to supporters on the day of the Capitol riot. The company initially imposed a 7-day ban but later extended the suspension indefinitely, citing the risk of further violence.
YouTube "is not a state actor and its exercise of editorial discretion over its private service does not implicate Plaintiffs' First Amendment rights," the company said in rebuttal to Trump's brief.
Following Trump’s declaration of his candidacy for a second term in March 2023, YouTube said it “weighed the risk of harm against the public’s interest in hearing from a major candidate,” while lifting the ban.
When his account returned, Trump marked the occasion with a brief post: “I’M BACK!”
The tech giant did not admit wrongdoing and will not make product or policy changes under this settlement.
Utilization of Settlement Money
As per the agreement, YouTube will pay $22 million on Trump's behalf to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit dedicated to the construction of a $200 million ballroom that Trump is building at the White House.
Currently under construction, the 90,000-square-foot (8361.27 square meters) facility is expected to be completed "long before" Trump's four-year term ends in January 2029.
The rest of $2.5 million will go to other plaintiffs in the case, including the American Conservative Union, which sponsors the Conservative Political Action Conference, and US author Naomi Wolf.
Trump vs Big Tech Companies
A couple of Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan expressing their concern over a possible settlement with Donald Trump. The senators said in the letter that they are “worried such an action would be part of a quid-pro-quo arrangement to avoid full accountability for violating federal competition, consumer protection, and labor laws, circumstances that could result in the company running afoul of federal bribery laws.”
Trump's lawyers mentioned he was kicked off under “non-existent or broad, vague and ever-shifting standards,” according to the original July 2021 complaint against YouTube and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.
In January, Meta agreed to pay about $25 million, and X (previously Twitter) paid about $10 million in February to settle similar lawsuits by Trump.
Meanwhile, Meta's settlement dedicated a fund for Trump's upcoming presidential library in Miami, Florida.
Since Trump’s return to the White House in January, the tech companies in the US have been settling their earlier disputes with the president. The settlement disclosure came just a few days before a court hearing, scheduled on October 6 with US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers in Oakland, California.