President Trump’s $100,000 paywall problem

President Donald Trump is once again expanding the frontiers of social media law. Truth Social began offering a $100,000-per-month subscription for early access to Trump’s posts in July. The Trump Media and Technology Group, Truth Social’s parent company, advertised the service as a “real-time feed of the platform’s most market-moving” content. But the Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a lawsuit alleging that the subscription scheme violates their First Amendment right to access the president’s posts. Their claims aren’t entirely unprecedented. Several First Amendment lawsuits over the past decade have focused on government accounts blocking users, and legal scholars say the lawsuit is the next chapter in this recently developed body of case law.