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Former US president Donald Trump has submitted a legal request for his personal Twitter account to be restored, which has been banned since January.
The request [PDF] was filed over the weekend in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida and calls for Twitter to reinstate Trump’s personal account.
Twitter permanently removed Trump from the social media platform after it found that he made several tweets to “inspire others to replicate violent acts”. The tweets in question were posted from Trump’s account days prior the US Capitol riots.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said at the time.
Prior to the ban, Trump had amassed over 88 million Twitter followers.
In the request, Trump has accused Twitter of enacting various forms of censorship against him, such as labelling some of his tweets as “misleading information” or indicating some tweets violated the company’s rules against “glorifying violence”.
“[Twitter] exercises a degree of power and control over political discourse in this country that is immeasurable, historically unprecedented, and profoundly dangerous to open democratic debate,” Trump’s request also states.
Among Trump’s tweets that were labelled as misleading included one where he claimed he was immune from getting COVID-19.
Beyond Twitter, Trump is also suspended from Facebook and YouTube. The former US president was suspended in January over similar concerns that he would provoke violence. While Facebook has said it would review its suspension against Trump in January 2023, the YouTube ban is indefinite.
