Meta settles Trump lawsuit over Facebook ban for $25 million
Social media giant Meta has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump and others who claimed their Facebook accounts were unlawfully shut down or blocked at the urging of the U.S. government.
Direct Negotiations Lead to Settlement
The deal followed direct negotiations between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the president, Trump lawyer John Coale said Wednesday.
Terms of the Settlement
Under the deal, Meta will pay $22 million to a fund to support the construction of Trump’s presidential library, while another $3 million is going to four people who joined Trump in the lawsuit filed in 2021.
Background of the Ban
Facebook banned Trump shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, when his administration was still in office. His accounts were restored in 2023.
Settlement Trend with Tech Leaders
The deal, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is just the latest by Zuckerberg and other tech and media leaders to try to resolve lingering legal disputes with Trump as he and his appointees take over the levers of power in Washington.
In December, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to resolve a libel suit Trump brought over anchor George Stephanopoulos repeatedly saying on air that a jury found Trump liable for rape in a case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. In 2023, a jury hearing a civil suit brought by Carroll found that Trump sexually abused and defamed her but found Trump not liable for rape. Still, a federal judge in New York later ruled that it was accurate to say that Trump was found liable for rape in “common modern parlance.”
CBS is also reportedly in talks over a potential settlement of a long-shot suit Trump brought during his last presidential campaign, claiming that the network’s editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris violated a Texas state law banning deceptive trade practices.
Efforts to Improve Relations
The Meta settlement also comes amid a conspicuous effort by Zuckerberg to thaw the company’s relations with Trump.
Earlier this month, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would end third-party fact-checking, which conservatives long claimed was biased against them. That move came after Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, named Republican lobbyist Joel Kaplan to lead its global policy team and appointed Ultimate Fighting Championship head Dana White to its board.
Zuckerberg also suggested the company was wrong to give into pressure from the Obama administration to remove certain content, like posts expressing skepticism about vaccines.
Republicans including House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have praised the company for a “dramatic change.”
Coale, one of Trump’s lawyers in the suit against Meta, also praised the overall shift in the social media industry to allow more freewheeling content on their platforms.
Legal Proceedings and Class Action
Trump filed his suit against Meta in Florida in 2021, along with separate suits against Twitter (now X) and Google, over its YouTube service. Judges ordered the three cases transferred to northern California. A federal judge in San Francisco dismissed the suit against Twitter in 2022, citing legal precedents rejecting similar claims over social media platforms’ content moderation policies.
An appeal in that case remains pending at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The suits against Meta and Google have essentially been on hold, awaiting the outcome of that appeal.
Trump filed his suit against Meta as a class action on behalf of all those who’d been stifled on the platform. However, it was never certified as a class, so no part of the settlement is expected to flow to Facebook users other than the named plaintiffs.
