YouTube to Pay $24.5 Million to Settle Trump January 6 Lawsuit

YouTube has agreed to pay a $24.5 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump after it suspended his account following the January 6 Capitol riot.

The Details: Alphabet, which owns YouTube and Google, will pay $22 million to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit raising money to build the new White House State Ballroom, and another $2.5 million to others who joined Trump’s suit, including the American Conservative Union and author Naomi Wolf.

For Context: The settlement follows similar ones from earlier this year. In January, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, settled out of court with Trump, paying $25 million total, $22 million of which went to funding his presidential library. In February, X (formerly Twitter) settled with Trump, paying a reported $10 million. On September 23, YouTube reinstated accounts that it previously banned after “pressure” from the Biden administration to do so.

How The Media Covered It: The story was covered fairly similarly across the spectrum. CNBC (Lean Left bias) noted that several Democratic senators authored letters of concern to Alphabet in August regarding a potential settlement with Trump. Fox Business (Lean Right) described the cohort of the three social networks as “Big Tech.”

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