特朗普特朗普起讼谷歌、Facebook、Twitter 三巨头
美国东部时间 2021 年 7 月 8 日下午 12:31，特朗普特朗普正式起讼谷歌、Facebook、Twitter 三巨头。
这三起诉讼专门针对谷歌首席执行官桑达尔皮查伊、Facebook 首席执行官马克扎克伯格和推特首席执行官杰克多尔西。
2020年，2021年皆为多事之秋，不仅特朗普起诉美国科技三巨头，拜登也在强化对科技公司监管。
不仅在美国，欧洲，中国也遇到类似场景。前不久蚂蚁金服上市被叫停，滴滴25款APP被下架。
7月8日特朗普在《华尔街日报》发表评论文章，解释自己起诉美国科技巨头的原因。特朗普认为这些公司联合政府对民众言论自由进行审查的行为，是美国民主最大的威胁。下面是特朗普发表文章的译文：
今天我们民主面临的最严重威胁之一是一群强大的大型科技公司，它们与政府合作审查美国人民的言论自由。这不仅是错误的——而且是违宪的。为了我自己和每个美国人恢复言论自由，我起诉大型科技公司阻止它。
社交媒体已成为言论自由的核心，就像前几代人的市政厅、报纸和电视网络一样。互联网是新的公共广场。然而，近年来，大型科技平台在审查和歧视社交媒体上的思想、信息和人员方面变得越来越无耻和无耻——禁止用户、去平台化组织，并积极阻止我们的民主所依赖的信息自由流动。
科技巨头不再只是简单地消除特定的暴力威胁。他们正在操纵和控制政治辩论本身。考虑在过去一年中被审查的内容。大型科技公司禁止用户在他们的平台上发布证据表明冠状病毒来自中国实验室，甚至企业媒体现在也承认这可能是真的。在大流行期间，大型科技公司禁止医生讨论羟氯喹等潜在治疗方法，研究表明，羟氯喹确实可以缓解 Covid-19 的症状。在总统大选前几周，这些平台禁止《纽约邮报》——美国最古老的报纸——发表批评乔·拜登的故事 的家庭，一个故事拜登竞选甚至没有争议。
也许最令人震惊的是，在选举后的几周内，大型科技公司屏蔽了现任总统的社交媒体账户。如果他们可以对我这样做，他们也可以对你这样做——相信我，他们是。
密歇根州教师詹妮弗·霍顿 (Jennifer Horton) 因分享一篇质疑幼儿强制戴口罩是否健康的文章而被Facebook禁止使用 。后来，当她的兄弟失踪时，她无法使用 Facebook 发布消息。科罗拉多医生凯利胜利在为她的教堂制作了一段视频，解释如何安全地举行服务后，被 YouTube 取消了平台。佛罗里达州的 Kiyan Michael 和她的丈夫 Bobby 在两次被驱逐的非法外国人造成的致命碰撞中失去了他们 21 岁的儿子。在他们发布边境安全和移民执法信息后，Facebook 对其进行了审查。
与此同时，中国宣传人员和伊朗独裁者在这些平台上散布威胁和仇恨谎言而逍遥法外。
这种对言论自由的公然攻击正在对我们的国家造成可怕的损害。这就是为什么我与美国优先政策研究所一起提起集体诉讼，以迫使大型科技公司停止审查美国人民。诉讼要求损害赔偿以阻止将来发生此类行为，并要求恢复我的帐户。
我们的诉讼称，大型科技公司正被用来实施非法和违宪的政府审查。1996 年，国会试图通过将责任保护扩展到互联网平台来促进互联网的发展，认识到它们正是平台，而不是出版商。与发布商不同，Facebook 和Twitter等公司 不对发布到其网站的内容承担法律责任。没有这种豁免权，社交媒体公司就不可能存在。
国会中的民主党人正在利用这种影响力迫使平台审查其政治对手。近年来，我们都看到国会在他们的委员会面前拖拽大型科技公司的 CEO，并要求他们审查“虚假”故事和“虚假信息”——这些标签是由一群忠于民主党的党派事实核查人员确定的。正如其他原告霍顿女士、胜利博士和迈克尔家族的案例所表明的那样，实际上这相当于压制当权者不喜欢的言论。
此外，Big Tech 和政府机构正在积极协调，根据疾病控制和预防中心等机构的指导从平台上删除内容。大型科技公司和传统媒体实体组成了“可信新闻倡议”，该倡议实质上是根据 CDC 的指示，了解他们需要哪些信息来“作战”。科技公司正在听从政府的命令，勾结审查未经批准的想法。
这种强制和协调是违宪的。最高法院认为，国会不能利用私人行为者来实现宪法禁止它自己做的事情。实际上，Big Tech 已被非法代理为美国政府的审查机构。无论您的政治主张如何，这都应该让您感到震惊。这是不可接受的、非法的和非美国的。
通过这些诉讼，我打算恢复所有美国人——民主党人、共和党人和独立人士的言论自由。我永远不会停止为捍卫美国人民的宪法权利和神圣自由而战。
特朗普先生是美国第 45 任总统。
英语原文
One of the gravest threats to our democracy today is a powerful group of Big Tech corporations that have teamed up with government to censor the free speech of the American people. This is not only wrong—it is unconstitutional. To restore free speech for myself and for every American, I am suing Big Tech to stop it.
Social media has become as central to free speech as town meeting halls, newspapers and television networks were in prior generations. The internet is the new public square. In recent years, however, Big Tech platforms have become increasingly brazen and shameless in censoring and discriminating against ideas, information and people on social media—banning users, deplatforming organizations, and aggressively blocking the free flow of information on which our democracy depends.
No longer are Big Tech giants simply removing specific threats of violence. They are manipulating and controlling the political debate itself. Consider content that was censored in the past year. Big Tech companies banned users from their platforms for publishing evidence that showed the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese lab, which even the corporate media now admits may be true. In the middle of a pandemic, Big Tech censored physicians from discussing potential treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, which studies have now shown does work to relieve symptoms of Covid-19. In the weeks before a presidential election, the platforms banned the New York Post—America’s oldest newspaper—for publishing a story critical of Joe Biden’s family, a story the Biden campaign did not even dispute.
Perhaps most egregious, in the weeks after the election, Big Tech blocked the social-media accounts of the sitting president. If they can do it to me, they can do it to you—and believe me, they are.
Jennifer Horton, a Michigan schoolteacher, was banned from Facebook for sharing an article questioning whether mandatory masks for young children are healthy. Later, when her brother went missing, she was unable to use Facebook to get the word out. Colorado physician Kelly Victory was deplatformed by YouTube after she made a video for her church explaining how to hold services safely. Kiyan Michael of Florida and her husband, Bobby, lost their 21-year-old son in a fatal collision caused by a twice-
deported illegal alien. Facebook censored them after they posted on border security and immigration enforcement.
Meanwhile, Chinese propagandists and the Iranian dictator spew threats and hateful lies on these platforms with impunity.
This flagrant attack on free speech is doing terrible damage to our country. That is why in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I filed class-action lawsuits to force Big Tech to stop censoring the American people. The suits seek damages to deter such behavior in the future and injunctions restoring my accounts.
Our lawsuits argue that Big Tech companies are being used to impose illegal and unconstitutional government censorship. In 1996 Congress sought to promote the growth of the internet by extending liability protections to internet platforms, recognizing that they were exactly that—platforms, not publishers. Unlike publishers, companies such as Facebook and Twitter can’t be held legally liable for the content posted to their sites. Without this immunity, social media companies could not exist.
Democrats in Congress are exploiting this leverage to coerce platforms into censoring their political opponents. In recent years, we have all watched Congress haul Big Tech CEOs before their committees and demand that they censor “false” stories and “disinformation”—labels determined by an army of partisan fact-checkers loyal to the Democrat Party. As the cases of fellow plaintiffs Ms. Horton, Dr. Victory and the Michael family demonstrate, in practice this amounts to suppression of speech that those in power do not like.
Further, Big Tech and government agencies are actively coordinating to remove content from the platforms according to the guidance of agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Big Tech and traditional media entities formed the Trusted News Initiative, which essentially takes instructions from the CDC about what information they need to “combat.” The tech companies are doing the government’s bidding, colluding to censor unAPProved ideas.
This coercion and coordination is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has held that Congress can’t use private actors to achieve what the constitution prohibits it from doing itself. In effect, Big Tech has been illegally deputized as the censorship arm of the U.S. government. This should alarm you no matter your political persuasion. It is unacceptable, unlawful and un-American.
Through these lawsuits, I intend to restore free speech for all Americans—Democrats, Republicans and independents. I will never stop fighting to defend the constitutional rights and sacred liberties of the American people.
Mr. Trump was the 45th president of the United States.
