Donald Trump is doing what he
does best.
He's filing a frivolous class
action lawsuit.
Now I say it's frivolous because
it's directed towards social media
platforms that have banned him
after giving him so many chances
to abide by their terms of service.
But after the Capitol riots as
we know, he was permanently banned
from Twitter and will continue to
be banned from Facebook for
another two years.
Now, Donald Trump,
who has complained about censorship
by social media giants, filed
a class-action lawsuit against
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg,
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and
Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
The filing, Trump said,
seeks immediate injunctive relief
to allow the prompt restoration of
his social media accounts.
He also said, he's asking the court
to impose punitive damages
on the three social media giants.
That's fascinating, that's what
the class-action lawsuit says.
Because he was asked about what his
real intentions were during
a press conference,
let's hear what he had to say.
>> If you're successful in this and
Twitter, and Facebook, and
Instagram, and all the social media
platforms let you back on and
let everyone else back on
uninhibited the way that
everyone's supposed to have access.
Would you use their
platforms again?
>> I don't know.
It's a good question.
I don't know, I might not.
I'm in a different position because
if I put out a press release,
I'm getting extremely good pickup,
but that's me.
>> Come on, come on, I mean,
Trump loyalists keep
launching their own social media
platforms and failing miserably.
The latest iteration of that
was GETTR.
And then Trump himself, remember
the Office of Donald Trump or
the Desk of Donald Trump, which
lasted a total of one month because
you realize like, actually building
your own social media platform.
It wasn't meant to be a social
media platform, but
building your own platform that's
meant to get as much attention as
Twitter did for him.
It's going to take a lot of work,
it's actually pretty hard to do,
and you think he's going to put in
the work for that?
>> No way. [LAUGH] >> Let's talk
about that first and the let's get
to two awesome ironies.
So first off, as always,
Trump's such a clown,
he clowns everything, right?
So he's like, Twitter,
I don't need them, man,
I'm going to do my own platform.
It's not really a platform, well,
okay, it's really nothing,
it's just a blank page.
You guys didn't like the blank page
where only I write.
Okay, fine, I'll shut it down,
from the Desk of Donald Trump.
Remember the tiny little desk he
used to use for
those signing ceremonies,
maybe they just overflowed.
Why did he do that?
because he's lazy.
He doesn't know how to
set up a platform and he's cheap.
Do you think he's going to hire
the team that you need 20, 30, 40,
200 people to set up a platform and
all those things?
He couldn't manage his way out of
a wet paper bag.
He's got six bankruptcies, right?
He'd be like, I'm lost in here,
what's going on, right?
And so then he files this lawsuit,
and he has a history of this.
He files the lawsuits for
publicity, and
then doesn't follow through.
A lot of times he doesn't even show
up in court.
What happened to the lawsuit?
I don't know, Donny got distracted
when he had lunch.
And in this case, he's like,
this is outrageous,
they're blocking our voice.
And I can't get my voice out
because of this, and
it's violated my freedom of speech.
Are you going to go on there?
No, I don't need them.
No, that's no,
that doesn't help your case.
[LAUGH] >> That's true,
that's a really good point.
But obviously he's lying,
he hates that he doesn't have
access to these platforms.
>> Of course but
it's a double loss.
He's lying.
>> Yep. >> And it hurts his case,
his theoretical case which probably
will never go to court.
But I want to get to
the two ironies,
Ana, because there's so amazing.
Number one is, I believe so
much in the First Amendment.
They took my freedom of speech away
and that is why I want to make sure
that those private companies cannot
do what they want to do.
Wait a minute, you're taking their
First Amendment rights away.
And you were actually the head of
the United States government,
they're not in
the government at all.
The First Amendment is
to protect us from the government.
So you're saying they should not
be able to have the speech rights
to platform anyone or
de-platform anyone they like as
a private corporation?
That's the most ironic
lawsuit ever.
And then the second part
of it is Section 230.
He says this Section 230 is
terrible.
We got to take it away, okay?
Section 230 protects those
platforms from the content
that people post on there.
So, if they
post things that are libelous, etc,
then they're not held responsible,
otherwise the platform's would have
to do a lot more censorship.
They'd have to say okay, no that
might get us in legal trouble,
that might get us in legal trouble,
that will definitely get us
in legal trouble.
>> Yes. >> And I have to take away
all of these commentors.
If they took away Section 230,
almost no right-wingers can
post anything on social media.
It will be considered
harassment, etc.
It could create legal,
not just criminal, but
civil liability for Facebook,
Twitter, and all other platforms.
It would devastate the right-wing,
but Trump thinks, but I feel so
hurt, I'm going to sue
people because of my feelings.
>> But it goes even
further than that, right?
He can't abide by the rules of
service or the terms of service.
He gets so many chances to stop
breaking the rules, right?
I mean, they could have banned him
a billion times and
they didn't do it.
Now, some of you might be saying,
look, it's a private company.
Yes, but this is wrong,
censorship of individuals on these
massive platforms is wrong.
Because for some people having
a presence on Twitter or
Facebook or whatever is incredibly
important for their career, for
their business, whatever.
Okay, that's fine, but
you can't cite the Constitution,
right?
The Constitution specifically
protects Americans from
the government censoring them.
It doesn't protect Americans from
private corporations
censoring them.
So that's why we have conversations
about the possibility of treating
these social networks or
these platforms as public utilities
instead.
Now, we're nowhere near that
right now because it's not really
even being discussed in Congress.
I mean, Congress can't even
pass legislation to deal
with our crumbling infrastructure,
which is pathetic.
But I understand those concerns,
those are legitimate concerns.
What we're hearing from
Donald Trump and Conservatives
are not legitimate concerns.
And this is why I'm saying this,
they keep arguing that platforms
like Facebook.
They're constantly
censoring us, guys.
Conservatives are censored on
Facebook.
Okay, let's take a look at
the top performing Facebook pages
in the United States.
First one, this is from July 2nd,
number 1, Ben Shapiro.
Number 2, twice,
don't know what that is.
Hold on, this is not the right,
this is from July 1st.
Okay, my bad, so
let me bring that up.
Okay, number 1, Ben Shapiro.
Number 2, Ben Shapiro.
Number 3, Fox News.
Number 4, Ben Shapiro.
Number 5, Ben Shapiro.
Number 6, Power of Positivity,
I like that.
I do feel that power of negativity
is being discriminated
against here.
7, NPR.
8, CNN, okay.
And then at number 10,
you have Cat Lovers Only.
But the point here is most of these
happen to be conservative outlets.
>> Yeah. >> Right, so
how are they being censored?
I'd like to know.
>> Well, I'll go further.
See, if you show the July 2nd one,
it doesn't matter,
you can show any day.
It's Shapiro, it's Bongeno,
it's Fox News, it's over and
over again, on most days, at least
eight out of ten are Conservatives.
So is Facebook discriminating
against Conservatives?
Of course not, right,
that's preposterous.
Even if Facebook was being fair,
and hey look,
Conservatives are popular and
they're getting that stuff.
You at least can't say they're
discriminating against them,
they're at the top of
Facebook, right?
But Conservatives don't care
because it's about whining to
the refs.
And that's partly probably how they
got to the top of Facebook
in the first place.
because I know algorithms,
we've been dealing with them for
a long time here, right?
There is no natural way that only
Conservatives rise to the top in
a platform.
Because Facebook's
not the only platform,
there's dozens of platforms.
We're on all the different
platforms, so you see how things
move up and down organically.
And so this idea of like,
there's all these theories about
no older people are on Facebook.
No, we're incredibly popular on
Facebook.
And so it's not that they're
discriminating against progressives
and not allowing them to exist or
to get popular or
anything like that.
But I've never seen on any platform
where only one side rises to
the top every single day.
So I don't know what the hell
Facebook's doing with their
algorithm but
that is not natural at all, that is
not what happens organically.
And so if Facebook is putting
a thumb on the scale,
it is in favor of Conservatives and
you could see it in the performance
every single day.
So I'm not saying I have
definitive proof that Facebook is
cheating, right?
But if they're cheating,
they're certainly not cheating in
favor of the Progressives because
the Conservatives are at the top
almost every day.
>> Right, and it might not even be
Facebook, right?
Facebook has its algorithms,
Conservatives figure out how to
game that algorithm to their
advantage, either through bots,
up voting certain things.
You get what I'm saying,
I know that that kind of behavior
takes place certainly on social
media platforms.
Twitter's a good example of
that as well.
>> Yeah Ana, that's such a great
point because you don't have to,
Conservatives think about this
the wrong way.
They think that people get
in a room,
they launch a conspiracy, etc.
And they tell the computer
programmers, now you write
the algorithm to favor
the right-wing, right?
No, there is just doing normal
titling, tagging, all the different
mechanics that anybody does to
promote their videos, right?
And then there are things that
are out of bounds and
it's in the terms of service, and
it says you cannot do this because
that's basically cheating, right?
Judd Legum wrote a terrific piece
about how Shapiro, and
it's not random Conservatives.
It's usually a certain group of
Conservatives and
almost all the time it's Shapiro.
And Legum wrote the piece about how
Shapiro was gaming the system in
a way that was clearly outside of
the terms of service of Facebook,
clearly, right?
And as Facebook done
anything about it?
>> No.
>> See, and that's
where the whining for
the refs makes the difference.
So when they cheat,
Facebook is scared to death or
maybe likes it.
People have no idea how deeply
Republican Facebook management is,
both in their politics team,
their news team, their board, etc.
Either they liked that
the Republicans are cheating and
the right-wing is cheating, or
they're looking the other
way because they're scared to death
of the Republicans.
No, no, no, we'll let you cheat,
we'll let you do anything.
But I guarantee you this, if anyone
on the left cheated for 1%,
you'd be banned for life, right?
So, but the- >> I mean, do you guys
really think that Ben Shapiro's
content is that popular?
I mean- >> No, it's total nonsense.
>> He is like a giant dork who
does nothing more,
I keep track of his podcast mostly,
it's all culture war stuff.
Every once in a while he'll talk
about the economy, those
were the podcasts I listen to.
Mostly to get the other side of
economic issues, which obviously I
completely disagree with him on
economic issues.
But with that said,
you listened to it and I can't
imagine popular support [LAUGH] or
anyone finding his content,
a giant group of Americans finding
his content- >> It doesn't matter
>> Super compelling,
to the point where he gets four
spots in the top ten Facebook list.
>> Almost every day.
>> Yeah, >> But Judd proved
he was cheating- >> Yeah, exactly.
>> Right, and so now look guys,
it doesn't matter how compelling
your content is.
We were number one on YouTube for
years, and years, and years, okay?
But we would never be the top four
out of ten every single day,
that's insane, that never happens
organically, right?
And so by the way, we're
near the top on Facebook right now.
But do we get four posts every day
that's in the top ten?
No way,
that is not organically possible.
>> Right. >> There is no amount of
content that's compelling enough
to produce these results.
>> Look at this.
>> So you can see that,
different day, three Ben Shapiros,
two Dan Bonginos, Franklin Graham,
right?.
>> Everyone's talking about
Dinesh D'Souza and Franklin Graham.
>> Dinesh D'Souza, I've never seen
anyone less compelling in my life.
No, come on, Facebook,
this is outrageous.
And meanwhile Trump is suing them
because they're not
conservative enough?
No, that's insanity
>> We know the kind of thinking
that Donald Trump has, right?
He might really believe what he's
saying because he has this whole
strategy about repeating things.
Let's watch.
>> And in a year from now,
the fake news will say
they've always been on this side.
It's amazing.
If you say it long enough,
hard enough, often enough,
people will start to believe it.
>> Maybe he really believes it.
>> Well, I'll tell you what,
that defines Trump's strategy 100%.
>> Absolutely.