Liberal social media furious after Wall Street Journal dares to allow Trump to attack Big Tech in scathing op-ed

Sarah Taylor

Former President Donald Trump issued a scathing rebuke of Big Tech in an op-ed published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, detailing why he is suing Big Tech giants and how he believes certain corporations are complicit in squashing the speech and diverse ideas of everyday American people.

Liberal social media quickly went into a frenzy over the paper's decision to allow the former president to write a piece for its pages.

What are the details?

In his article "Why I'm Suing Big Tech," Trump explained that he believes Big Tech is working in tandem with the government to "censor the free speech of the American people."

"One of the gravest threats to our democracy today is a powerful group of Big Tech corporations that have teamed up with the government to censor the free speech of the American people," he wrote.

Pointing out that the very idea is not just wrong, but unconstitutional, the former president vowed, "To restore free speech for myself and for every American, I am suing Big Tech to stop it.

"Social media has become as central to free speech as town meeting halls, newspapers, and television networks were in prior generations," he continued. "The internet is the new public square."

Trump added that in recent years Big Tech platforms have been censoring Americans and discriminating against free speech by de-platforming, suspensions, and more, "controlling the political debate" in America.

"Consider content that was censored in the past year," he wrote. "Big Tech companies banned users from their platforms for publishing evidence that showed the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese lab, which even the corporate media now admits may be true."

He also pointed to Big Tech's censorship on hydroxychloroquine treatment for COVID-19 cases as well as how the mainstream media and social media networks appeared to quash reports about the laptop controversy surrounding President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, and more.

"Perhaps most egregious, in the weeks after the election, Big Tech blocked the social media accounts of the sitting president," Trump continued. "If they can do it to me, they can do it to you — and believe me, they are."

Pointing to his recent class-action lawsuit against Big Tech giants such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Trump added, "This flagrant attack on free speech is doing terrible damage to our country."

"The suit seeks damages to deter such behavior in the future and injunctions restoring my accounts.," he added.

In a Wednesday statement announcing the suit, the former president said, "I stand before you this morning to announce a very important and very beautiful, I think, development for our freedom and our freedom of speech. ... Today, in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I'm filing as the lead class action representative a major class action lawsuit against the Big Tech giants including Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as their CEOs."

The lawsuit is seeking an immediate injunction to stop social media platforms from what he says is the "illegal, shameful censorship of the American people."

"Our case will prove this censorship is unlawful, it's unconstitutional, and it's completely un-American," Trump added.

Trump, concluding the op-ed, warned that Democrats are coordinating with Big Tech to suppress any nonconformist thought from social media platforms.

"This coercion and coordination is unconstitutional," he insisted. "The Supreme Court has held that Congress can't use private actors to achieve what the Constitution prohibits it from doing itself. In effect, Big Tech has been illegally deputized as the censorship arm of the U.S. government. This should alarm you no matter your political persuasion. It is unacceptable, unlawful and un-American."

What are people saying?

One user complained, "Trump screams 'I AM BEING CENSORED!' from the editorial page of a mainstream international media outlet. Shame on you, @WSJ, shame on you, @WSJopinion."

Another added, "It's not the biggest takeaway from Trump's op-ed (the biggest has to do with what WSJ opinion has become) but it was still perplexing to me that Trump's use of 'illegal alien' wasn't changed by an editor. AP stopped using the term in 2013, and many pubs have since followed suit."

"WSJ must know the case has no merit and is being used as a fundraising tool. You have some duty to your readers don't you? Maybe some duty to yourselves? Some code of ethics?" another fumed.

"And again, reminding me why I canceled my WSJ subscription," one user quipped.

Another took aim at the paper for not being "serious" or thoughtful."

"Future generations will marvel when we tell them the Wall Street Journal was once considered a serious, thoughtful newspaper," the user wrote.

Another snarked, "*NOTE* @WSJopinion is not @WSJ, rather more similar to right-wing propagandists such as @seanhannity and @OANN."

Sarah Taylor, The Blaze, July 9, 2021