Shortly after Twitter banned former President Donald Trump, California resident Maria Rutenberg filed a doomed lawsuit against the company, arguing that it violated her free speech rights by depriving her of the ability to retweet and comment on Trump’s old posts.
U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland promptly threw out Rutenberg’s lawsuit, ruling that Twitter can’t deprive people of their First Amendment rights, for the obvious reason that Twitter isn’t the government. The First Amendment prohibits government officials — not private companies — from suppressing speech.
