Of all the titans of social media, Google CEO Sundar Pichai tried to keep the groveling to a minimum after Donald Trump won last year. He did not, like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, go on podcasts to praise the benefits of “masculine energy” or hire the new president’s close friend, the Ultimate Fighting Championship boss Dana White, to his board of directors. He did not, like the X owner Elon Musk, go to work in the White House or publicly declare his straight-man “love” for Trump. Unlike TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Pichai never pushed a notification to all app users (with an exclamation point!) thanking Trump for his efforts.
在所有社交媒体的巨人中，Google首席执行官Sundar Pichai试图在唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）去年获胜后，试图将Grooveling降至最低。他没有像元首席执行官马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）那样播客来赞美“男性能源”的好处，也没有雇用新总统的密友，最终的格斗冠军老板达娜·怀特（Dana White），将其送入董事会。他没有像X老板埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）那样在白宫上班，也没有公开宣布他对特朗普的直截了当的“爱”。与Tiktok首席执行官Shou Zi Chew不同，Pichai从未向所有应用程序用户（感叹号！）向特朗普的努力提出通知。
There was instead a brief visit to Mar-a-Lago, the requisite $1 million Google donation to Trump’s inaugural fund, and the stoic appearance as a background prop during the ceremony in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. Even Pichai’s statement that day read dutiful and dry: “We look forward to working with you to usher in a new era of technology + AI innovation that will benefit all Americans.”
取而代之的是，对玛丽·拉戈（Mar-A-Lago）进行了简短的访问，即对特朗普就职基金的100万美元捐款以及在美国国会大厦圆形大厅举行的仪式上的背景道具的必要捐款。即使是当天的皮卡（Pichai）的声明，也很忠实而干燥：“我们期待与您合作，以迎接技术 + AI创新的新时代，这将使所有美国人受益。”
But the man who runs YouTube may soon get another opportunity to demonstrate his fealty. Trump sued Zuckerberg, Pichai, and the former CEO of Twitter (which Musk later purchased and renamed X) in 2021 for restricting his accounts after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The president alleged that the companies and executives had illegally censored him at the urging of U.S. political leaders, violating his First Amendment rights. It was an ironic argument from a politician who likes to settle political grudges with governmental threats. But it was an effective one: During their postelection courtships of Trump, Zuckerberg settled his case with a payment of $25 million, mostly to Trump’s presidential-library fund, and Musk followed with $10 million more.
但是，经营YouTube的那个人很快可能会有另一个机会表现出他的忠诚。特朗普起诉扎克伯格，皮卡伊（Pichai）和前首席执行官（马斯克（Musk）后来在2021年购买并更名为X），以限制他的账户，此前1月6日袭击了美国国会大厦。总统声称，这些公司和高管非法审查了他的敦促美国政治领导人，侵犯了他的第一修正案权利。这是一位政治家的讽刺论点，他喜欢与政府威胁解决政治上的怨恨。但这是一个有效的事情：在特朗普的选举后求婚期间，扎克伯格以2500万美元的价格解决了他的案子，主要支付了特朗普的总统库里基金，马斯克随后又增加了1000万美元。
Read: Why Meta is paying $25 million to settle a Trump lawsuit
阅读：为什么Meta支付2500万美元来解决特朗普诉讼
Now it may be Pichai’s turn. Lawyers for President Trump and Pichai have begun “productive discussions” about the next steps of the case against YouTube, “with additional discussions anticipated in the near future,” according to briefs filed in a San Francisco federal court shortly after Memorial Day that appear to have escaped public notice. The parties have asked the judge to give them until September 2 to come to an agreement on a path forward.
现在轮到Pichai了。根据旧金山联邦法院在纪念日后不久，在旧金山联邦法院提交的摘要中，特朗普总统和皮卡总统的律师已经开始就针对YouTube案件的下一步进行“富有成效的讨论”。双方已要求法官给他们直到9月2日，就一条前进的道路达成协议。
“I can’t talk about that,” John Cole, a lawyer in the case for Trump, told me when I called to ask about settlement talks. José Castañeda, a spokesperson for Google, also declined to comment.
“我不能谈论这个问题，”特朗普案件的律师约翰·科尔（John Cole）告诉我，当我打电话询问和解谈判时。Google发言人JoséCastañeda也拒绝发表评论。
The fact that the talks are happening at all says more about Trump’s remarkable use of presidential power than his legal prowess or the merits of his case. In 2022, a federal district court dismissed Trump’s case against X after concluding that Trump had failed to “plausibly allege” that Twitter’s decision to ban his account was directed by the government. Trump’s case against YouTube was put on hold while Trump appealed the X case to the Ninth Circuit, which appeared likely to rule against Trump again.
谈判正在发生的事实更多地表明了特朗普对总统权力的显着利用，而不是他的法律实力或案件的优点。2022年，联邦地方法院在得出结论认为特朗普未能“合理地指控” Twitter禁止其帐户的决定是由政府指示的。特朗普针对YouTube的案件被搁置了，而特朗普向第九巡回赛上诉X案，这似乎很可能再次对特朗普进行裁决。
But Musk’s decision to settle his case while he was working alongside Trump in the White House prevented the appeals court from issuing a decision, and effectively reopened the YouTube case this spring. That has left Pichai with a difficult choice: continue with a legal fight he may win on the merits and risk the wrath of the president of the United States, or agree to give some money to Trump’s presidential library and move on.
但是马斯克在与特朗普在白宫一起工作时决定解决案件的决定阻止了上诉法院发布决定，并有效地重新开放了今年春天的YouTube案。这使皮卡（Pichai）遇到了一个艰难的选择：继续进行法律斗争，他可能会以优点获胜，并冒着美国总统的愤怒，或同意向特朗普总统图书馆捐款并继续前进。
The whole situation is head-spinning: Trump has shown that he can successfully use the powers of his elected office to threaten private companies into settling civil suits even when the cases are based on the allegation that those same companies broke the law by caving to the demands of politicians like him.
整个情况是头部旋转：特朗普表明，即使案件是基于指控，那些同一公司通过对像他这样的政治家的要求，即使案件违反了法律，他也可以成功利用当选办公室的权力来威胁私人公司解决民事诉讼。
“Essentially, what this means is that the English language has failed us,” Robert Corn-Revere, the general counsel of the free-speech group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told me. “We need a stronger word than hypocrisy to describe these kinds of activities.”
“本质上，这意味着英语使我们失败了，”自由语音集团个人权利和表达基金会的总法律顾问罗伯特·康特雷（Robert Corn-Revere）告诉我。“我们需要一个比虚伪的词来描述这类活动。”
The incoherence of Trump’s position on the First Amendment has become clear as he has used the power of his office to target the speech of political foes at universities and law firms and incompliant media outlets such as the Associated Press, while simultaneously condemning the very idea that the government should ever try to restrict the speech of his political allies. When the contradiction is pointed out, he dismisses it. His advisers push back fiercely. For Trump, what matters is winning.
特朗普在《第一修正案》上的立场不连贯，因为他利用办公室的权力来针对大学和律师事务所的政治敌人，以及诸如美联社等媒体媒体的不完整媒体，同时谴责政府应该试图限制他的政治盟友的言论。当指出矛盾时，他将其驳回。他的顾问猛烈地向后推。对于特朗普来说，重要的是获胜。
“The idea that President Trump is infringing on the First Amendment is a joke,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told me in a statement. “This story should be about how pitiful it was for Big Tech to censor the former President of the United States—not the other way around. The President is holding these powerful and wealthy institutions accountable for their years of wrongdoing.”
白宫新闻秘书卡罗琳·莱维特（Karoline Leavitt）在一份声明中对我说：“特朗普总统侵犯第一修正案的想法是个玩笑。”“这个故事应该是关于大型技术对美国前总统的可怜，而不是相反。
Legal observers suggest another way of looking at Trump’s approach to free speech. “‘I will support my friends and go after the people who oppose me,’” Raymond Brescia, an associate dean at Albany Law School, told me. “It’s hard to look at it any other way.”
法律观察家建议另一种看待特朗普言论自由方法的方式。“‘我会支持我的朋友，追随反对我的人，”奥尔巴尼法学院的副院长雷蒙德·布雷斯西亚（Raymond Brescia）告诉我。“很难其他任何方式。”
About three months after he took office, Trump alleged during an Oval Office signing ceremony that the Biden administration had illegally launched Internal Revenue Service investigations into his supporters because of their political views. “We’re finding that many people, just having to do with Trump support, have gone through hell,” he said. “It’s a very illegal thing to do what they did.”
上任大约三个月后，特朗普在椭圆形的办公室签署仪式上指称，拜登政府由于政治观点而非法向他的支持者发起了国内税收服务调查。他说：“我们发现，许多人，与特朗普的支持有关，已经经历了地狱。”“做他们所做的事情是非常非法的。”
I was in the room that day, and I asked Trump how he squared that concern with his decision to entertain changing Harvard University’s tax status because he did not like its diversity policies and its handling of on-campus protests. He quickly pivoted. “Because I think Harvard is a disgrace. I think what they did was a disgrace,” he said. Harvard, of course, has asked a court to rule that Trump’s various punishments violate the First Amendment.
那天我在房间里，我问特朗普，他如何对改变哈佛大学的税收状况的决定对他的决定感到平衡，因为他不喜欢其多样性政策和处理校园内抗议活动。他迅速枢转。他说：“因为我认为哈佛是一种耻辱。我认为他们所做的是耻辱。”当然，哈佛大学已要求法院裁定特朗普的各种惩罚违反了第一修正案。
This week’s settlement by Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, offers further evidence of his mindset. Before the 2024 election, Trump filed a lawsuit against CBS Broadcasting Inc. alleging that the network had violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by choosing to air two different edits, on two different shows, of Vice President Kamala Harris’s answer to a question. Such editing is a routine part of political journalism, which regularly shortens quotes and tapes for brevity. Trump argued that the version that aired for a larger audience on 60 Minutes made Harris look deceptively better because it left out some of her confusing stammering.
CBS News的母公司Paramount Global的本周和解提供了进一步的证据。在2024年大选之前，特朗普对CBS Broadcasting Inc.提起诉讼。声称该网络违反了《德克萨斯州欺骗性贸易惯例法》，选择在两次不同的节目中播出两种不同的副总统卡马拉·哈里斯（Kamala Harris）对问题的回答。这种编辑是政治新闻业的日常部分，它经常缩短简洁的报价和磁带。特朗普认为，在60分钟内播放了更多观众的版本使哈里斯看上去看起来更好，因为它忽略了她令人困惑的结实。
Rather than wait for the courts to address the merits of his claim, he applied his own pressure once he regained government power. Trump’s new chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, reopened a closed complaint alleging that the editing amounted to “news distortion.” Carr had previously said that the claim should be considered when the FCC weighed approval of the proposed merger of Paramount Global and its new investor, Skydance. Trump egged Carr on. In a post complaining about a different 60 Minutes segment in April, Trump wrote that he hoped Carr would “impose the maximum fines and punishment” on CBS. Paramount agreed on Tuesday to give $16 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle the Harris-interview case. Trump’s presidential-library foundation, which incorporated in Florida in May, has not yet disclosed its plans for what to do with all the settlement money. Trump’s son Eric Trump, his son-in-law Michael Boulos, and an attorney for the Trump Organization, James Kiley, have been named the initial trustees.
一旦恢复了政府权力，他就没有等待法院解决他的主张的优点，而是施加了自己的压力。特朗普的联邦通信委员会新任主席布伦丹·卡尔（Brendan Carr）重新开放了一份封闭的投诉，称编辑相当于“新闻扭曲”。卡尔此前曾表示，当FCC权衡拟议合并派拉蒙全球及其新投资者Skydance的合并时，应考虑这一要求。特朗普蛋糕扎了起来。特朗普在一篇抱怨60分钟分段的帖子中写道，他希望卡尔将“对CBS施加最高罚款和惩罚”。派拉蒙（Paramount）周二同意向特朗普的总统图书馆捐款1600万美元，以解决哈里斯（Harris-Interview）案。特朗普在5月在佛罗里达州成立的总统公平基金会尚未透露其对所有和解资金如何处理的计划。特朗普的儿子埃里克·特朗普（Eric Trump），他的女son迈克尔·布洛斯（Michael Boulos）和特朗普组织的律师詹姆斯·基利（James Kiley）被任命为最初的受托人。
All the while, the Trump administration has continued to ceremoniously embrace the First Amendment rights of American companies and citizens. On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order called Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship, which condemned the Biden administration for “exerting substantial coercive pressure” on social-media companies to moderate posts on their sites. Trump declared that it was now the policy of the United States to “ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”
一直以来，特朗普政府一直在言会地掌握美国公司和公民的第一修正案权利。在任职的第一天，特朗普发布了一项行政命令，称为恢复言论自由并结束联邦审查制度，该命令谴责了拜登政府“对社会媒体公司施加巨大的强制压力”，以在其网站上进行适度的职位。特朗普宣布，现在是美国的政策，“确保没有联邦政府官员，雇员或代理商从事或促进任何会在违宪地删除任何美国公民的言论自由的行为。”
“There is a new sheriff in town,” Vice President J. D. Vance declared on February 14 in Munich, Germany. “And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square, agree or disagree.”
2月14日在德国慕尼黑宣布：“镇上有一个新的警长。”“在唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）的领导下，我们可能会不同意您的观点，但是我们将努力捍卫您在公共广场上提供他们的权利，同意或不同意。”
Vance didn’t mention that just three days earlier, Leavitt had told an Associated Press reporter that, at Trump’s direction, the AP would lose its permanent spot in the White House press pool, barring it from the Oval Office and Air Force One, until the wire service started referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” A district-court judge ruled that this decision violated the First Amendment rights of the AP, though the ruling was later paused by an appellate court after the White House imposed broader changes on how the pool system is organized. The AP, which has not bowed to Trump’s demands and has yet to regain its spot, has since been let into the pool on occasion and continues to have access to White House briefings.
万斯没有提到三天前，莱维特告诉一名美联社记者，在特朗普的方向上，美联社将失去其在白宫出版社的永久地点，除非将其从椭圆形办公室和空军一号出发，否则直到电线服务开始称为墨西哥湾作为“美国海湾”。一名地区法官裁定，这一决定侵犯了AP的第一修正案权利，尽管该裁决后来在白宫对泳池系统组织方式进行了更大的更改后，在上诉法院暂停。此后，美联社尚未屈服于特朗普的要求，尚未重新获得其位置，此后偶尔被放到游泳池，并继续接触白宫简报。
The courts have not been impressed by such misdirection. Just three months after Trump’s executive order barring unconstitutional abridgment of free speech, D.C. federal district Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled that Trump had committed that exact offense. At issue was a March 6 executive order, 14230, that declared that employees of the law firm Perkins Coie should be limited from entering federal buildings, interacting with federal employees, or holding security clearances because of the firm’s “dishonest and dangerous”activity, including the decision to represent Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign and to promote diversity in its hiring practices. Three other federal judges have since thrown out Trump executive orders targeting three more law firms on the same grounds.
法院没有被这种误导印象深刻。在特朗普的行政命令禁止违宪的言论自由违宪的情况下，华盛顿特区联邦地方法院法官贝里尔·霍威尔（Beryl A. Howell）裁定特朗普犯下了这一确切罪名。有争议的是14230年3月6日的行政命令，宣布律师事务所珀金斯·科伊（Perkins COIE）的雇员因进入联邦建筑物，与联邦雇员互动或持有安全许可而受到限制，包括该公司的“不诚实和危险”活动，包括决定在2016年总统竞选期间代表希拉里·克林特顿（Hillary Clinton）的决定，并促进其雇用行为的多样性。此后，其他三名联邦法官就以相同的理由提出了针对三个律师事务所的执行命令。
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“In a cringe-worthy twist on the theatrical phrase ‘Let’s kill all the lawyers,’ EO 14230 takes the approach of ‘Let’s kill the lawyers I don’t like,’ sending the clear message: lawyers must stick to the party line, or else,” Judge Howell explained while voiding the executive order. Trump appealed Howell’s ruling this week to the D.C. Circuit.
“在戏剧短语中，'让我们杀死所有律师'的曲折中，EO 14230采取了'让我们杀死我不喜欢的律师'的方法，传达了明确的信息：律师必须坚持党派，否则，霍德尔法官在宣布执行命令时解释说。特朗普本周向华盛顿特区的裁决上诉。
Should Pichai choose to fight it out in court with Trump, he would quite possibly get a favorable ruling. When the Ninth Circuit heard the X case in 2023, two of the three judges on the panel questioned the evidence that Trump had gathered to suggest that his ban from Twitter had been caused by government pressure. As in the YouTube case, Trump’s lawyers had presented only general comments from public officials about the need for social-media companies to increase moderation, including from members of the House and Senate, then-candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and former first lady Michelle Obama.
如果皮卡（Pichai）选择与特朗普（Trump）在法庭上对抗，他很可能会得到一项有利的裁决。当第九巡回法院在2023年听到X案时，小组中的三名法官中有两名质疑特朗普收集到的证据表明他的禁令是由政府压力造成的。与YouTube案一样，特朗普的律师仅发表了公职人员的一般性评论，即社交媒体公司需要增加节制的需求，包括众议院和参议院的成员，当时的参议员乔·拜登（Joe Biden）和卡玛拉·哈里斯（Kamala Harris）以及前第一夫人米歇尔·奥巴马（Michelle Obama）。
“Why do statements from, let’s say, four senators at a committee hearing all of a sudden commit all of the power of the federal government to create state action here?” Ninth Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, an appointee of President George W. Bush, asked during oral arguments in the case. “I don’t know of any case that stands for that proposition.”
“为什么要说的是，在一个委员会中，四名参议员的声明突然宣布了联邦政府在这里制定州行动的所有权力？”乔治·W·布什（George W. Bush）总统任命的第九巡回法官杰伊·拜比（Jay Bybee）在此案的口头辩论中询问。“我不知道有任何代表这一主张的情况。”
The problem for Pichai is different, of course, as it was for Zuckerberg, Musk, and Paramount—and will be different for anyone else Trump targets. Google could end up losing more by prevailing in court than it would win by conceding the case and making an eight-figure donation to Trump’s presidential library.
当然，Pichai的问题与Zuckerberg，Musk和Paramount是不同的，对于其他任何人的特朗普目标而言，都会有所不同。Google最终可能会因在法庭上流行而损失更多，而不是通过承认此案并向特朗普的总统图书馆捐款八位数来获胜。
