Trump sued over “brazen” scheme to sell Truth Social API access for $100K a month

特朗普因“厚颜无耻”的计划被起诉：以每月10万美元出售 Truth Social API 访问权

President Trump was sued by nonprofit news groups today over Truth Social’s “Truth API” that sells real-time access to posts from Trump and other top users of the social network. Trump is profiting from selling preferential access to government information, the lawsuit said. 非营利新闻机构今日对特朗普提起诉讼，指控其社交网络 Truth Social 的“Truth API”以出售特朗普及其他顶级用户帖子的实时访问权牟利。诉讼称，特朗普正通过出售政府信息的优先访问权来获利。

Trump’s social media company this month started charging customers up to $100,000 per month for the earliest access to posts that can have immediate impacts on financial markets. The first customers are mostly high-frequency trading firms that could benefit financially from getting official government news milliseconds before others. 特朗普的社交媒体公司本月开始向客户收取每月高达 10 万美元的费用，以提供对可能对金融市场产生直接影响的帖子的最快访问权限。首批客户大多是高频交易公司，他们可以通过比他人提前几毫秒获取官方政府新闻而在经济上获益。

“This scheme is profoundly corrupt. The President stands to gain financially by giving ‘market-moving’ government information to those who are willing and able to pay his personal company,” the lawsuit said. Truth Social also intends to impose restrictions on web scraping tools and make its API the only way to access archived posts that have been deleted or edited, the lawsuit said. 诉讼称：“这一计划极其腐败。总统通过向那些愿意并有能力向其个人公司付费的人提供‘影响市场’的政府信息，从而获得经济利益。”诉讼还指出，Truth Social 打算对网页抓取工具施加限制，并使其 API 成为访问已删除或编辑过的存档帖子的唯一途径。

The lawsuit was filed by The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which argue that Trump is violating the US Constitution by preventing equal access to government announcements. 该诉讼由《The Intercept》和新闻自由基金会（Freedom of the Press Foundation）共同提起，他们认为特朗普通过阻止公众平等获取政府公告的行为违反了美国宪法。

“A president selling priority access to news he himself generates for the benefit of a private company he controls is so blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional that it would have been hard to even fathom just a few years ago,” said Seth Stern, the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s chief of advocacy. 新闻自由基金会倡导主管塞思·斯特恩（Seth Stern）表示：“一位总统为了他所控制的私营公司的利益，出售他自己发布的新闻的优先访问权，这种行为是如此公然的腐败和违宪，以至于在几年前简直难以想象。”

Trump “privatizing government information”

特朗普“将政府信息私有化”

The lawsuit was filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. It asks the court to declare that posting official government information exclusively on Truth Social while charging for fast access through the API is unconstitutional and unlawful. It seeks an injunction prohibiting the president and aides from posting official government information exclusively on Truth Social as long as the platform maintains the paid API. 该诉讼已提交至美国纽约南区联邦地区法院。诉讼请求法院宣布，仅在 Truth Social 上发布官方政府信息，同时通过 API 收取快速访问费用是违宪且非法的。诉讼寻求一项禁令，禁止总统及其助手在 Truth Social 平台维持付费 API 的期间，仅在该平台上发布官方政府信息。

“Trump is trying to enrich himself by privatizing government information that he has no right to sell,” said Ben Muessig, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. “We won’t let it stand.” 《The Intercept》主编本·穆西格（Ben Muessig）表示：“特朗普正试图通过将他无权出售的政府信息私有化来中饱私囊。我们绝不会坐视不管。”

Trump frequently posts official government announcements exclusively on Truth Social, including military attacks and ceasefires, the hiring and firing of agency heads, and major domestic policies, the lawsuit said. 诉讼称，特朗普经常在 Truth Social 上独家发布官方政府公告，包括军事打击和停火协议、机构负责人的任免以及重大国内政策。

“Trump’s crooked scheme is particularly outrageous because, as documented by our Trump Anti-Press Social Media Tracker, he frequently uses his Truth Social account to berate journalists and even to announce his plans to sue them and criminally investigate them,” Stern said. “Then, he makes them wait in line behind paying customers to find out about it unless they’re willing to subsidize the platform he uses to attack them. This brazen grift targets not only the markets but the First Amendment.” 斯特恩说：“特朗普的这种欺诈计划尤其令人愤慨，因为正如我们的‘特朗普反媒体社交媒体追踪器’所记录的那样，他经常利用自己的 Truth Social 账号斥责记者，甚至宣布起诉和刑事调查他们的计划。然后，他让这些记者排在付费客户后面等待消息，除非他们愿意资助他用来攻击他们的平台。这种厚颜无耻的敛财行为不仅针对市场，也针对宪法第一修正案。”

Truth Social seeks more customers

Truth Social 寻求更多客户

Besides Trump, defendants include Executive Assistant to the President Natalie Harp and Deputy Chief of Staff Daniel Scavino. Both Harp and Scavino have access to Trump’s Truth Social account and publish posts on his behalf, the lawsuit said. The other named defendants are the Executive Office of the President and the White House Office. 除特朗普外，被告还包括总统行政助理娜塔莉·哈普（Natalie Harp）和副幕僚长丹尼尔·斯卡维诺（Daniel Scavino）。诉讼称，哈普和斯卡维诺都有权访问特朗普的 Truth Social 账号并代表他发布帖子。其他被列为被告的还有总统行政办公室和白宫办公室。

Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social, reported $1.7 million in revenue and a net loss of $238.1 million in the second quarter. The net loss included $190.4 million in “non-cash losses including unrealized losses on digital assets, digital assets pledged, and equity securities,” the company said. Truth Social 的所有者特朗普媒体与技术集团（Trump Media & Technology Group）报告称，第二季度营收为 170 万美元，净亏损 2.381 亿美元。该公司表示，净亏损中包括 1.904 亿美元的“非现金损失，包括数字资产、质押数字资产和股权证券的未实现损失”。

Trump Media expects that Truth API will help generate more cash. Interim CEO Kevin McGurn said in an earnings call that the firm signed up over 10 customers, mostly high-frequency trading firms that are paying $60,000 to $100,000 a month. McGurn said Truth Social is in conversations to sign up cloud computing companies, large news organizations, and developers of large language models. The company plans to eventually offer the Truth API to retail investors, he said. 特朗普媒体预计 Truth API 将有助于产生更多现金。临时首席执行官凯文·麦格恩（Kevin McGurn）在财报电话会议上表示，该公司已签约 10 多家客户，主要是每月支付 6 万至 10 万美元的高频交易公司。麦格恩表示，Truth Social 正在与云服务公司、大型新闻机构和大型语言模型开发商洽谈签约事宜。他说，公司计划最终向散户投资者提供 Truth API。

The company’s press release that announced Truth API said that “markets already move on Truth Social posts” and that the service will become a significant, ongoing source of revenue. “Truth API is designed for organizations most impacted by the cost of a delay in information. This includes high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms that require a low-latency, machine-readable feed rather than manual tracking,” the company said. 该公司宣布 Truth API 的新闻稿称，“市场已经因 Truth Social 的帖子而波动”，该服务将成为一个重要的、持续的收入来源。公司表示：“Truth API 专为那些受信息延迟成本影响最大的组织而设计。这包括需要低延迟、机器可读数据流而非手动追踪的高频和算法交易公司。”

Lawsuit alleges violation of 1st and 5th Amendments

诉讼指控违反第一和第五修正案

The lawsuit argues that Truth API imposes an impermissible burden on access to Trump’s public announcements. “The First Amendment guarantees equal access to the President’s public announcements, and even content-neutral burdens on that access must be narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest,” the lawsuit said. 诉讼认为，Truth API 对获取特朗普的公开公告施加了不可接受的负担。诉讼称：“第一修正案保障了平等获取总统公开公告的权利，即使是针对该访问权限的、与内容无关的限制，也必须经过严格限定，以服务于重大的政府利益。”

“There is no legitimate interest, let alone a significant one, in permitting President Trump to profit from selling government information. Similarly, the Fifth Amendment prohibits charging unreasonable sums that cannot be justified to offset the cost of the government benefit, and granting preferential access to crucial government information for arbitrary and irrational reasons, as is the case here.” “允许特朗普总统通过出售政府信息获利，没有任何合法利益，更谈不上重大利益。同样，第五修正案禁止收取无法证明其合理性的不合理费用来抵消政府利益的成本，也禁止出于武断和非理性的原因授予关键政府信息的优先访问权，而本案正是如此。”

The lawsuit said Truth Social appears set on making archived posts impossible to access without an API subscription. It pointed to a McGurn quote in which he said, “We’re going to create a lot of friction for those folks that aren’t coming to us directly.” This shows that Truth Media plans to disrupt web-scraping tools and ensure that users must subscribe to Truth API to access deleted or edited posts that are no longer available to the public, the lawsuit said. 诉讼称，Truth Social 似乎决心让用户在没有 API 订阅的情况下无法访问存档帖子。诉讼引用了麦格恩的一句话：“对于那些不直接访问我们平台的人，我们将制造很多阻碍。”诉讼指出，这表明特朗普媒体计划干扰网页抓取工具，并确保用户必须订阅 Truth API 才能访问已删除或编辑过、且不再向公众开放的帖子。

The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation are both nonprofits and said they will be harmed by the Truth Social scheme. 《The Intercept》和新闻自由基金会均为非营利组织，他们表示 Truth Social 的这一计划将损害他们的利益。