Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company, has agreed to pay $24.5 million (£18.6 million) to settle a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump. The suit was brought after the video platform suspended his account following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump’s lawsuit accused YouTube and other tech companies of political bias, claiming they unfairly censored conservative voices. At the time of the 2021 suspension, social media companies said Trump risked inciting further violence. The settlement directs $22 million to the Trust for the National Mall, a non-profit group working to raise $200 million to build a new ballroom at the White House. An additional $2.5 million will be paid to other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, a group that includes the American Conservative Union.
YouTube is the latest major platform to settle with the president. In January, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, agreed to a $25 million settlement, with $22 million of that amount earmarked for Trump’s presidential library. A month later, the social media platform X, purchased by Elon Musk in 2022, settled for a reported $10 million. All of Mr. Trump’s social media accounts have since been reinstated by the platforms.
These settlements coincide with Silicon Valley adopting a more conciliatory tone toward the president. The CEOs of Alphabet, Meta, and X sat in the front row for his inauguration, a move that signaled a shift in relations between the tech sector and the Republican Party. The social media giants have also taken measures to loosen content moderation on their platforms, which Republicans had claimed amounted to a violation of free speech.
In a related action, YouTube announced last week it planned to restore several accounts previously banned for repeatedly making false claims about Covid-19 and the 2020 presidential election. In a statement to a Republican-controlled congressional committee explaining the decision, the company wrote, “YouTube values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes that these creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse.”
