A federal judge on Wednesday dealt a massive blow to former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter, Google, and Facebook for blocking him from their platforms — ruling on Wednesday that the case must be heard in a less favorable venue to the former president.
The former president filed the case in Miami, where the district and appellate court system are dominated by Republican appointees including several Trump himself appointed.
However, as noted POLITICO legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein, Judge Kevin Michael Moore, a George H. W. Bush appointee, stated that the terms of service for YouTube — which is owned by Google — require the case be transferred to a court in the San Francisco Bay Area, where courts have far more Democratic appointees.
According to legal experts say Trump faced an uphill battle even if he had a Republican-appointed judge to hear his case and have widely mocked the lawsuit as doomed, with First Amendment precedent clearly on the side of social media companies who want to keep objectionable content off of their platforms.
Other critics have even called it a “fundraising grift” intended only to encourage supporters to donate.
JUST IN: Fed judge Michael Moore kicks Trump's Section 230-focused 1st Amendment suit v. Google from Miami to Bay Area of California. Cites fine print in YouTube's terms of service. Case goes from what Trump viewed as friendly turf to Google's home. Doc: https://t.co/Nqr2luI2Sz
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) October 6, 2021
