{"id":856275,"date":"2026-08-13T06:50:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T06:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/856275\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T06:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T06:50:18","slug":"media-groups-sue-trump-over-paid-access-to-public-social-media-posts-corruption-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/856275\/","title":{"rendered":"Media groups sue Trump over paid access to public social media posts | Corruption News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawsuit claims Trump profits unfairly by charging up to $100,000 monthly for exclusive access to presidential posts.<\/p>\n

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Published On 12 Aug 202612 Aug 2026<\/p>\n

The publication The Intercept and the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation have filed a federal lawsuit against United States President Donald Trump to block his social media service from selling advance access to his posts.<\/p>\n

Court filings on Wednesday argue that the subscription-based service would restrict access to matters of public interest.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis scheme is profoundly corrupt,\u201d the complaint reads. \u201cThe president stands to gain financially by giving \u2018market-moving\u2019 government information to those who are willing and able to pay his personal company.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit cites the right to a free press under the US Constitution and argues that the plan would violate the First Amendment\u2019s implicit guarantees of \u201cequal access to the President\u2019s public announcements\u201d.<\/p>\n

It also claims that the subscription service would run afoul of the Fifth Amendment\u2019s protections, which it says restrict the government from charging arbitrary sums to access government information.<\/p>\n

The complaint names Trump in an official capacity, along with White House aide Natalie Harp and Deputy Chief of Staff Daniel Scavino.<\/p>\n

\"PresidentPresident Donald Trump holds up an image taken from his Truth Social account during an Oval Office meeting about vaccines on August 10 [Jacquelyn Martin\/AP Photo]<\/p>\n

The lawsuit centres on Truth API, which was announced in July<\/a> and launched on August 1.<\/p>\n

The subscription service, a product of the Trump Media and Technology Group,\u00a0charges subscribers between $60,000 and $100,000 a month for real-time access to posts from Trump and other prominent accounts on Truth Social, the group\u2019s social media platform.<\/p>\n

More than 10 customers had already subscribed as of an August 10 earnings call, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n

Critics have pointed out that Trump uses his Truth Social account to announce policy changes that could have effects on the economy. Trump\u2019s comments, for instance, about the US-Israel war on Iran have sent ripples through global oil markets.<\/p>\n

Trump holds the largest stake<\/a> in the Trump Media and Technology Group, worth roughly $1bn, down from about $4bn when it was placed in a trust in early 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is trying to enrich himself by privatizing government information that he has no right to sell,\u201d The Intercept editor-in-chief Ben Muessig said. \u201cWe won\u2019t let it stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump Media said in a statement that presidential communications already flow through \u201ccountless platforms and news outlets, many of which offer subscription APIs\u201d.<\/p>\n

The White House has not commented on the dispute. The lawsuit is set to be heard in a federal court for the Southern District of New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawsuit claims Trump profits unfairly by charging up to $100,000 monthly for exclusive access to presidential posts. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,25302,13444,1376,46,3456,40416,7607,44,1942,772],"class_list":["post-856275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-corruption","tag-courts","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-europe","tag-freedom-of-the-press","tag-media","tag-news","tag-social-media","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}