Trump Has Scored A HUGE First Amendment Win!

The case against Former President Donald Trump was dismissed by a New York judge. This is about the popular social media personality CarpeDonktum over a meme criticizing legacy media as “fake news.”

This dismissal made Trump win the First Amendment.

Supreme Court Judge David Benjamin Cohen said that the said meme that was retweeted by Trump and created by CarpeDonktum, whose real name is Logan Cook, was “newsworthy” and satirical.

The Hollywood Reporter described the video in question:

Cook found a video of a white toddler running after a black toddler and stuck a chyron reading “breaking news” over it. The captions read, “Terrified Toddler [sic] Runs From Racist Baby” and “Racist Baby Probably A Trump Voter.”

The video then fades to black, and reads, “What happened.” The toddlers run at each other and embrace. A new caption: “AMERICA IS NOT THE PROBLEM…FAKE NEWS IS. IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING. ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FAKE NEWS DUMPSTER FIRES.”

After Trump retweeted the video, Twitter quickly added one of their infamous “manipulated video” labels to the faux meme. And later, the family of the toddlers in the meme filed a private suit against Trump and Cook alleging “the exploitation of the childrens’ image had violated New York privacy and publicity rights law (N.Y. Civil Rights Law §§50 and 51) and was both an intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress,” The Hollywood Reporter noted.

“Initially, as defendants assert, the video was newsworthy,” Cohen wrote in his decision. “To promote freedom of expression, the meaning of ‘newsworthiness’ has been broadly construed and includes ‘not only descriptions of actual events … but also articles concerning political happenings, social trends, or any subject of public interest.’”

“It is common knowledge that one of the principal tactics of Trump’s presidential campaigns, as well as his presidency, was to incessantly attack the mainstream media as purveyors of ‘fake news,’ including his claim that the media exaggerates the extent of racial division in this country,” the judge continued. “Thus, the video’s references to ‘fake news and its depiction of race relations, however distorted, are newsworthy.”

“Since the video is, therefore, a satire, albeit one which some may consider being rather distasteful, this Court is constrained to find that it is not actionable,” he said.

Cohen, though, did not agree with Trump’s request to have his legal fees paid for from the “frivolous” suit. The plaintiffs had a “good faith basis” for their case, Cohen said, and “should not be penalized by the draconian language outlined in” the anti-SLAPP statute, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Daily Wire Ian Haworth reported about the lawsuits that Trump filed last week, the said lawsuits are against Big Tech giants Facebook, Google, and Twitter over the censorship of conservatives:

Speaking at a news conference, Trump said the lawsuits would demand that the court prevent ongoing censorship.

“We’re demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing and canceling that you know so well,” Trump said, calling the lawsuits “a very important game-changer for our country.”

The lawsuits, filed in the Southern District of Florida, argue that Big Tech giants violated Trump’s First Amendment rights when they suspended his social media accounts. In addition, they claim that many such platforms should be considered as “state actors” who should be limited by “First Amendment restrictions on government limitations on free speech.” Finally, the lawsuits look to strike down Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, as well as seeking “unspecified punitive damages.”

Source: Daily Wire

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