Former US President Donald Trump has requested a federal judge in Florida to order that his Twitter account be restored. Two days after the January 6 Capitol rioting, the Republican leader’s account was suspended from the microblogging service.
Twitter originally suspended the former president’s account, @RealDonaldTrump, for 12 hours for “repeated and egregious violations of our Civic Integrity guideline.” Trump claimed on Twitter that the 2020 US Presidential Election was rigged. Other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube, have also barred him.
According to the company, the Republican candidate’s tweets glorified violence.
Twitter noted that Trump’s remarks that prompted the removal were ‘very likely to incite others to imitate what happened in the Capitol riots.
In July, Donald Trump sued Twitter, Facebook, and Google, as well as their CEOs, alleging that they illegally stifle conservative voices.
According to Reuters, he filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against Twitter in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida late Friday. The 75-year-old said that the social media platform was “coerced” to suspend his account by members of the US Congress.
According to the Washington Post, “Plaintiff Donald J. Trump respectfully moves for a preliminary injunction requiring, inter alia, Defendant Twitter, Inc. and all parties working in concert with Defendant, to reinstate Plaintiff’s access to Defendant’s social media platform(s).”
According to Bloomberg, Trump’s lawyers stated in the lawsuit that Twitter “exercises a degree of influence and control over political discourse in this nation that is incalculable, historically unprecedented, and fundamentally damaging to open democratic debate.”
Trump went on to say that Twitter allowed the Taliban to regularly post about their military achievements across Afghanistan, but that he was blocked during his presidency.