A basic premise of First Amendment law is that the government can’t censor protected speech, but a private entity can for the simple reason that it’s not the government. Sure, the government can coerce a private entity to act, thus making it an agent of the government, but that’s a separate issue. If I choose to trash your comment, tough nuggies. The same is true for social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

So why did YouTube just pay Trump, personally, $24.5 million for a facially frivolous claim?

YouTube agreed to pay a $24.5 million settlement to President Trump and others who were suspended by the video streaming platform in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to a legal document filed on Monday.

YouTube froze Mr. Trump’s account after the riot, blocking him from uploading new videos and arguing that the content could lead to more violence. Mr. Trump sued YouTube in October 2021, claiming that it and other social media firms that removed his accounts had wrongfully censored him.

Wrongfully? Under what conceivable legal theory would that be?

Until recently, Mr. Trump’s lawsuits against the social media companies had largely stalled. A federal judge dismissed the case against Twitter in 2022, and judges had put the lawsuits against Meta and YouTube on ice.

Any time action was taken against Trump, he sued. That’s what he does, whether for good reason, bad reason or no reason. His suits play well with the MAGA faithful, who are not known for their legal acumen, relying instead on the vibe that anything that hurts Dear Leader’s feelz must be unlawful, if not criminal. So what changed that these moribund claims suddenly produced huge cash payment to Trump?

Mr. Trump and his administration have ramped up pressure campaigns against his perceived enemies in recent months, including law firms that championed Democratic causes, prominent universities and media critics like Jimmy Kimmel. This month, Mr. Trump sued The New York Times, asking for $15 billion in damages. The lawsuit was dismissed, although Mr. Trump may refile.

And YouTube is merely the latest in the list of supplicants at the alter of Trump.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, in January settled a similar lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump, agreeing to pay $25 million. X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk and formerly known as Twitter, agreed in February to pay about $10 million to resolve a dispute about the 2021 suspension of Mr. Trump’s account.

Media companies have also made concessions to Mr. Trump. Paramount in July agreed to pay him $16 million to settle his lawsuit over the editing of a CBS “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. ABC News agreed to pay $15 million in December to settle a defamation case filed by Mr. Trump against the network and one of its anchors, George Stephanopoulos.

As it turns out, these frivolous suits have provided a facile mechanism to do what these corporations could not otherwise lawfully do. It’s one thing to hand Trump’s Immigration Czar Tom Homan a brown Cava bag containing $50 grand, which Trump’s former defense attorney and now DAG Todd Blanche says is totally cool and not at all illegal, but it would take a really big paper bag to hold the almost $25 million YouTube just passed under the table to Trump.

But there is nothing unlawful about settling a legal dispute, right? Even if the suit is frivolous. Even if the suit is dead in the water? Even if there is no legitimate conceivable purpose to settling when there is no possibility that Trump would prevail in his frivolous claim.

“The law was on their side,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, who said the settlements were akin to “buying influence.”

The companies “do seem like they are currying favor with the presidential administration,” he added.

But as was made abundantly clear with the Jimmy Kimmel kerfuffle, following ABC’s payoff of $15 million for the ridiculous George Stephanopoulos suit, the influence bought runs out as soon as the next bribing opportunity comes along. So what’s the point of bribing Trump if he won’t stay bought?

Two possibilities come to mind. The first is the purchase of Trump’s acquiescence to the unregulated use of Artificial Intelligence, the new buzzword (remember when blockchain was the newest, coolest thing that everybody was into?) that these social media companies are forcing down their users’ throats whether they want it or not.

The second possibility is that while buying off Trump doesn’t mean he’ll stay bought, not buying off Trump might well put a corporation on his enemies list and cause him to twit at AG Pam Bondi that they are guilty as hell of some amorphous wrong that really makes Trump sad, causing the DoJ to go after them and find something that can be used to prosecute the corporation or one of its owners. That’ll teach ’em.

It’s not that these social media companies wouldn’t easily prevail in litigation, but that they don’t want to beat Trump in court as he has no reluctance to use the government authority he wields as president against them. Whether he tells Bagman Homan to send camo-clad and masked ICE agents into YouTube’s headquarters in search of people to throw to the ground then send to El Salvador or refuse regulatory permission for a purchase or merger, there are innumerable means for the president to do damage to his enemies.

So for a mere $24.5 million, not really a big deal to Alphabet, which earned $9.7 billion in revenue off YouTube advertising in the second quarter last year, they may not have made a friend, but they avoided making an enemy out of a very vindictive guy who has no shame in using his power to go after his enemies. And as long as it’s called a settlement, the bribe is totally lawful.