Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
US President Donald Trump has been sued in federal court over a new paid service at his social media company, Truth Social, that offers early, exclusive access to his posts on US policy. The lawsuit seeks to stop Trump from making money through the arrangement, saying official announcements on issues such as war and tariffs should be available to everyone at the same time.
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The case was filed after Trump Media & Technology launched a subscription service earlier this month that charges Wall Street firms as much as USD 100,000 a month to get Trump’s posts faster so they can trade on them. Trump Media rejected the allegations and said the plaintiffs were trying to silence the president.
The lawsuit alleges that Trump’s deal to post first on his own company’s site about US policy decisions violates the Constitution. Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, which has filed the case along with news outlet The Intercept, said, “A president selling priority access to news he himself generates for the benefit of a private company he controls is so blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional that it would have been hard to even fathom just a few years ago.”
Trump Media said selling fast access to traders is common in its industry. “Information from President Trump is disseminated by countless platforms and news outlets, many of which offer subscription APIs,” it said in a statement. “Now, left wing activists are trying to wrongfully weaponise the courts to censor him again and harm our shareholders.”
The plaintiffs said Trump’s arrangement gives exclusive Truth Social access to his posts for six hours before they are distributed elsewhere. They argued that this violates two parts of the Constitution: the First Amendment right to access a president’s comments on equal terms with other members of the press and public, and the Fifth Amendment prohibition on charging unreasonable conditions for government benefits. The suit asks that Trump Media be forced to end both the new paid service, called Truth API, and its exclusive access deal with Trump’s company in general.
The early access service comes as the publicly traded Trump Media loses hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter, with its stock falling below USD 10 from USD 62 shortly after going public two years ago. Even before the new API service began earlier this month, ethics watchdogs had criticised Trump’s posting on Truth Social as an attempt to profit from the presidency, alongside other money-making ventures linked to cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, Trump filed a required annual financial disclosure report showing that he took in more than USD 1 billion last year from new crypto businesses regulated by his administration.
Among other moves since he was re-elected, Trump’s digital finance company, World Liberty Financial, received a USD 500 million investment from a company tied to the government of the United Arab Emirates. It also sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of special souvenir Trump meme coins to his fans and possible federal favour seekers, including a billionaire fighting a federal lawsuit that was later paused and then settled.
In addition to Trump, the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York names his deputy chief of staff Daniel Scavino and his executive assistant Natalie J. Harp as defendants. The case centres on whether a sitting president can give paying subscribers early access to his policy-related posts through a company he controls.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
