X aka Twitter Slapped With $350K Fine, Is It About Trump’s Account?

Elon Musk‘s social media platform, formerly known as Twitter but now called X, was fined $350,000 (approximate ₹2.89 crore).

This penalty is due to not complying with a search warrant related to former US President Donald Trump’s Twitter account. This happened earlier this year, and recently revealed court documents explain the situation.

The Department of Justice had initiated a special investigation that led to the issuance of a search warrant for Trump’s Twitter account (@realDonaldTrump) in January.

This was part of a probe into Trump’s alleged involvement in disrupting the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election.

However, on February 1, X disputed the demands of the warrant. The company claimed that the attached nondisclosure order violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and petition.
The dispute was raised after the court-established deadline and requested the district court to examine the validity of the nondisclosure before complying with the warrant.

X objected again on February 2, stating that the nondisclosure order violated their First Amendment rights to communicate with the user, in this case, former President Trump.

X was found in contempt on February 7, and they were given a deadline to provide the required materials by that day at 5 PM. X missed this deadline but eventually complied on February 9.

As a result of missing the deadline, X was fined $350,000 for not complying with the warrant. This incident occurred as X was undergoing a transition in ownership and had changed its name from Twitter to X.

The warrant was related to investigating Trump’s activities on Twitter during a critical time after the election.

Former President Donald Trump had launched Truth Social in February 2022 as a free speech-friendly alternative to Twitter.

The platform has faced criticism for its lack of moderation, leading to the spread of misinformation and hate speech.

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Truth Social has struggled with technical issues and has a small user base, but Trump is determined to make it a major player in social media.

Trump has started his own social media platform due to dissatisfaction with mainstream social media (especially Twitter at that time) and their censorship policies.