On September 29, local time, Axios News Network that Google-owned video site YouTube has agreed to pay US President Trump $ 22 million (about RMB 1,57 billion) to a settlement.
The report quoted court documents as saying that Trump's $22 million compensation will be deposited into a trust fund for his White House banquet hall renovation project, which cost about $200 million. YouTube will also pay $2.5 million to other plaintiffs in the case. Google declined to comment on the case.
Trump responded on the “real social” platform, saying “YouTube surrendered... this huge victory proves that the censorship of large tech companies has consequences.”
Trump lost his 2020 re-election campaign and insisted on electoral fraud, whose supporters attempted to overturn the election result, thus triggering a worldwide congressional mountain riot.
Following the incident, Twitter (now Platform X) decided to deactivate Trump's personal account because of the risk of incitement to violence, and several other social media platforms took similar measures.
In July 2021, Trump filed a lawsuit against Meta (Facebook’s parent company), X and Google for suspending their social platform accounts.
In January this year, Meta reached a settlement with the Trump side at a price of $25 million, of which $22 million will be spent on the fund of the Trump Presidential Library. In February, X agreed to pay about $10 million for a settlement with Trump. Today, YouTube has also reached a settlement with Trump.
At the beginning of Trump’s lawsuit, most U.S. legal experts believed that the lawsuits had no legal basis and were difficult to move forward. Previous similar lawsuits had been rejected on the grounds that tech companies had the right to operate their platforms as they deem appropriate.
CNN that since Trump took office in January, tech giants have taken a more supportive approach to Trump and the Republican Party, and the reconciliation has taken place in this context.