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Photo illustration by Thomas Fuller / Sopa Images / Lightrocket via Getty Images
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Photo illustration by Thomas Fuller / Sopa Images / Lightrocket via Getty Images
Meta agreed to pay $ 25 million President Donald Trump to settle federal legal action in 2021, alleging violations of the first amendment and other complaints following the company the suspended to Facebook and Instagram following The January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Payment resolves the pursuit that Trump brought against Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg for having allegedly committed an “unacceptable censorship” by removing the president of the social media platforms.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed the sum of the regulation, which was reported for the first time by The Wall Street Journal. The company official said that around $ 22 million in the regulations will be sent to the Trump presidential library.
The amount of the regulation was not revealed in a letter to the court written Wednesday by the lawyer of Zuckerberg K. Winn Allen, who declared to a judge in northern California the prosecution to be rejected.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a comment request.
Payment represents an important victory for Trump, and another step in Zuckerberg’s efforts to court it.
Zuckerberg was part of a number of Silicon Valley leaders and companies who contributed $ 1 million to Trump inaugural fund. Earlier this month, he finished The Meta fact verification program, which had long been criticized by Trump supporters. And Zuckerberg promoted Joel Kaplan, a republican lobbyist, to lead the world business affairs. In addition, Meta typed Trump Ally Dana White for the company’s board of directors.
Zuckerberg’s embrace occurs after years of tension.
In a book that Trump published before being elected, he deplored the more than $ 400 million Zuckerberg made a donation in 2020 to support local electoral offices during the coronavirus pandemic. Trump then wrote that he was watching Zuckerberg, threatening to throw the technological billionaire in prison for “the rest of his life”.
Until recently, Meta lawyers had fought the prosecution, which, according to them, in court documents, was baseless, because “Meta and its CEOs are private parties” and the first amendment only applies government’s censorship by the government.
Trump’s prosecution said Meta only suspended Trump’s accounts after being forced to do so by elected officials, arguing that Meta was then at the government’s request.
In response, Meta’s legal team said Trump had been suspended for violating policies against violence incentive, not due to a declaration made by a member of the Congress.
Meta lawyers wrote in a legal submission that it was “little logical to attribute the action of a private party to the government on the basis of a handful of declarations of individual members of the Congress”.
The meta is the second in Trump in recent months. In December, ABC News agreed to pay 15 million dollars in Donald Trump to set a pursuit on E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexual abuse.
