YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5m to settle a lawsuit filed by US President Donald Trump, after the platform suspended his account in the wake of the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack.
Trump initiated legal action against YouTube, Twitter (now X), and Meta in July 2021, asserting that these companies and their chief executives engaged in the unlawful suppression of conservative content.
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According to court filings, $22m of the settlement will be directed by Trump to the Trust for the National Mall and for the development of a White House ballroom.
The documents further state that $2.5m will be distributed among other parties, including writer Naomi Wolf and the American Conservative Union.
The settlement follows YouTube’s recent announcement that it would reinstate creators previously barred for disseminating misinformation related to Covid-19 and the 2020 US Presidential election, reported The Guardian.
This case is one of a series of lawsuits filed by Trump against major social media platforms after his removal from their services post-Capitol events and the end of his presidency during the first term.
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By GlobalDataMeta reached a $25m settlement with Trump earlier this year, allocating most of those funds to his Presidential library fund. In February, X settled a similar suit for $10m.
Recently, Trump approved TikTok’s continued operation in the US through an executive order that mandates changes to the platform’s operations and ownership.
The new agreement stipulates that TikTok’s US app will be managed by a newly formed joint venture (JV) company based in the US, which is valued at approximately $14bn, according to US Vice President JD Vance.
