Former President Donald Trump filed an appeal over the dismissal of his lawsuit that claimed Twitter violated his First Amendment right to free speech when the platform banned him following the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Bloomberg reports that Trump filed a notice of appeal in San Francisco federal court on Monday, saying he will take his case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
U.S. District Judge James Donato dismissed the complaint in May, ruling that Trump had not proven that Twitter was functioning as a government censor when it banned him for violating its policy on tweets that glorify violence.
The former president had claimed that Twitter banned him at the request of Democrat lawmakers.
Since the ban, Trump has launched his own social media platform called Truth Social and has declared he won't return to Twitter, even if tech billionaire Elon Musk's deal to acquire the company goes through and Musk reinstates his account.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has cited his concern about Twitter's censorship of conservatives as one of the main reasons he wants to take over the platform.
After the U.S. Capitol building was breached by protesters on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was certifying President Joe Biden's victory, Facebook and YouTube also banned Trump's accounts, alleging that he used the social media platforms to incite violence among the mob.
The Washington Examiner reports that Facebook is slated to revisit its ban of Trump in January 2023, while YouTube has said it will lift its suspension when it determines the risk of violence has decreased.
"With Musk's new management of Twitter and a potential Republican sweep in the 2022 midterms, I think it is likely that Trump would be reinstated onto Facebook at this time, with similar action to follow from YouTube," Emerson Brooking, a resident senior fellow at centrist think tank Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab told the news outlet. He added that he thought Trump would return to Twitter at the same time.