Topic: WorldNetDaily
As you'd expect with his history of Trump fanboying and his embrace of Trump's Big Lie, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah can't stop gushing over Donald Trump. He was especially gushful when Trump filed his dubious lawsuit against social-media operations that banned him after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that he played a key role in instigating. Farah slobbered in his july 7 column:
Former President Donald Trump, who has long complained about censorship by social media giants, filed class-action lawsuits Wednesday against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
That's it: Trump is my hero!
[...]
Trump's suit likely faces an uphill battle, according to experts, who say the First Amendment can't apply to private companies, even if they do benefit from government policies like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
But that is one of the reasons I love the guy. He thinks big. Trump thinks the power of social media companies is growing too great. Who doesn't agree?
Farah gushed again over Trump's lawsuit, along with actions by other states against tech operations in his July 9 column, adding: "I'm looking at filing my own lawsuit against Google for wrecking the oldest online news service, WND.com, in case anyone can point me to a high-profile nonprofit attorney. I seek to recover lost revenues of at least five years and then some." But Google didn't "wreck" WND -- Farah did, by insisting on publishing conspiracy theories instead of reporting facts.
Farah's gush-a-thon continued in his July 12 column:
President Donald Trump said it so anyone could understand why he was suing Big Tech.
He said something everyone should be able to understand:
"If Big Tech can censor me, they can censor you."
I never believed it would come to this. I didn't think brute censorship could ever come to America. But I saw it begin in earnest in 2016 – as a response to Trump's unexpected election victory that year.
Of course, Trump hasn't been "censored" -- private companies have simply exercised their right not to give a platform to someone who repeatedliy violated their terms of service, which is completely legal. By that same standard, we could sue WND for blocking us from using its commenting platform, even though we have never violated any posted terms of service. That's a lot closer to "censorship" than what happened to Trump.
Nevertheless, Farah continued to play victim: "Big Tech calls the shots as if they were in charge of the press. Of course, they are not – but they act as if they are. They terrorize independent, conservative and Christian sites like WND. They TELL our site what we can publish and what kind of audience we will be limited to. They see themselves as the only arbiters of 'truth.'" We've repeatedly documented how WND publishes lies, so maybe this isn't the hill that Farah should want to die on.
The next day, Farah cheered the alleged chances of success of Trump's lawsuit:
Donald Trump's First Amendment suits against Facebook, Twitter and Google are being panned in the media.
But never count him out. He's way underrated!
They say the First Amendment ordinarily applies only to government – not private companies. Many make this mistake, especially conservatives.
When the plaintiffs claim in their class-action lawsuit that the tech companies should be treated as state actors and therefore are bound by the First Amendment when they engage in selective political censorship, they have precedent to back it up. Big Tech censorship constitutes state action because the government granted them immunity from legal liability, has implicitly threatened to punish them if they allow disfavored speech, and has colluded with them in choosing targets for censorship.
Actually, courts have a history of ruling that tech companies are not state actors when they enforce their terms of service. But Farah was much more interested in once again playing victim:
But Trump's lawsuit also is important for this independent news agency. We have been severely hurt – singled out, slammed, maligned by Big Tech. They have done everything possible to squeeze us – including things you don't know.
Since Big Tech suppressed, de-monetized, maligned and banned us – and also destroyed the advertising-based business model on which we have long depended – to survive we have regrouped and established the WND News Center, an IRS-approved 501(c)3 nonprofit, which allows us to receive your tax-deductible donations. WND used to be a wildly successful for-profit enterprise – bringing in some $15 million dollars a year. We published books then, and made movies too. But it was all too much for Big Tech to take.
Now we're fortunate if we survive.
Given WND's long history of misinformation and outright lies, WND's survival would not be "fortunate" for anyone who cares about accurate and balanced journalism.
