FILE - The Truth Social account for former President Donald Trump is seen on a mobile device, Wednesday, March 20, 2024, in New York. Reddit and Trump Media are the first social media companies to begin trading publicly in the last five years. They're also, thanks to the rabid reception among investors, the latest meme stocks. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
A left-leaning news organization asked a federal judge on Tuesday to bar President Donald Trump and his close associates from posting official government announcements on Truth Social as long as it’s selling faster access to the president’s market-moving social feed.
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The Intercept, in a suit filed in New York, is seeking an injunction against such posts and asking a judge to declare the move to sell access “unconstitutional and unlawful.”
Last month, Truth Social began charging users up to $100,000 a month for “Truth API,” a feature granting corporate clients and high-frequency trading firms a first look at the president’s posts. The Intercept and co-plaintiff Freedom of the Press Foundation originally on Aug. 12, arguing het is trading Americans’ First Amendment rights for profit.
“Trump doesn’t get to charge people for his own public statements,” Annie Chabel, The Intercept’s chief executive, said in a Tuesday news release. “The First Amendment doesn’t have a paywall, and we’re not going to let him build one.”
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The plaintiffs are also seeking a preliminary injunction to prohibit Trump’s executive assistant Natalie Harp and his deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino from posting White House announcements “so long as ‘Truth API’ is in operation.”
The two are believed to be the only aides with access to the president’s Truth Social account.
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In an earnings call last month, Trump Media’s interim CEO Kevin McGurn told investors that clients had already begun buying access to the president’s social feed.
And while the White House has not publicly commented on the suit, McGurn characterized Trump API as perfectly legal.
“Providing licensed real-time public data through commercial APIs is a well-established business practice across the technology, financial information and media industries,” McGurn said on the earnings call. “This is no different.”
Trump created Truth Social in 2021 after he was removed from Twitter, and he remains the largest shareholder in its parent company, Trump Media. According to the court filings, the plaintiffs claim the president and top aides “frequently and exclusively” use the platform to declare military attacks, fire agency heads and announce major domestic policies — communications that frequently rouse market rallies.
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