Trump Claims Twitter Can’t Ban Him Because He Used To Be President And, Besides, It’s ‘Addictive’

It’s been about three-quarters of a year since Donald Trump was banned from Twitter. And it’s clear he wants back on. The former president is in the midst of suing the social media giant, which was his favorite such service, and last week his lawyers issued a court filing arguing that he should be let back on for two reason: he used to be the leader of the free world, and, you know, tweeting is “addictive.”

As per The Hill, the filing makes an extraordinary argument: that the terms of service, which he repeatedly violated, did not apply to him when he was booted because at the time he was President of the United States. It claims he “repeatedly used his account to report to the Citizens of the United States on virtually every aspect of Presidential activity” and that it was “a key channel for official communication.”

Ignoring that Trump often used it to air petty grievances, the filing also makes this claim: “One thing is undeniably clear in this case: Plaintiff’s account was a government account, and not a private one when he was censored,” Trump’s lawyers said in the filing.

The filing later argues that Twitter is an “addictive” service, and intentionally so, and that any seasoned user, like Trump, will blindly agree to the terms of service without reading the fine print.

Trump’s lawyers are also fighting to keep the case in Florida, where he currently resides, to California, where Twitter lives. Twitter’s terms of service indicate that all lawsuits will be argued in California. But there’s a good chance Trump’s team wants to keep it in Florida, because there that’s where far more Trump-friendly judges reside.

The former president was booted from Twitter mere days after the Capitol riots, which he arguably (or maybe not so arguably) helped foment.

(Via The Hill)