WND Staff – It was tech giant Twitter that let the phrase “Die Trump” trend overseas.
It was Twitter from which Disney walked away because of its “nastiness extraordinary.”
It is Twitter that has been accused countless times of shadowbanning or otherwise suppressing the speech of conservatives.
It is Twitter that attacked a critic of Planned Parenthood and suspended an evangelical Christian for mocking Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren.
Actor James Woods was assigned to “Twitter jail” for his conservative opinions, and columnist Michelle Malkin was warned she violated a Muslim country’s blasphemy law.
It was Twitter that greenlighted “death for all Israelis.”
Al Jazeera even used Twitter to silence its critics.
But things may be changing as a result of a judge’s decision to allow a $250 million lawsuit brought by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., against Twitter to go forward.
The Federalist reported the case soon could be a “nightmare” for the company.
Judge John Marshall, who was assigned the case in Virginia, is considering a number of routine motions, such as Twitter’s claim that the case should be in court in California instead.
“At one point, he asked Twitter to provide to him under seal information on the users managing the anonymous accounts and their locations, the number of Twitter users in Virginia, and the amount of revenue earned by the company in the state,” the Federalist reported.
“Rather than comply with the court order, Twitter gave the judge the middle finger and refused to provide the information demanded by the court. The judge responded by allowing the trial against Twitter to proceed in Virginia, a move that could wreak havoc not just on Twitter’s bottom line going forward, but also its entire business model.”
The report said the next likely step is a trial at which Twitter will be “subject to full-blown discovery by Nunes and his legal team.”
The case came about because Nunes, as a congressman investigating the Hillary Clinton email and related scandals, was the target of malignant attacks on Twitter. As chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, he investigated the Trump-Russia collusion claims made by Democrats.
His lawsuit against Twitter alleges negligence over multiple cases of defamation and impersonation by the social media company’s users.
“It was Nunes who forced Fusion GPS to disclose that its hiring of Christopher Steele, a foreign spy, to collude with foreign officials to manufacture and spread dirt on Trump and his associates was in fact funded by Team Clinton,” the report said. “It was Nunes who forced the declassification and release of key spy warrants that showed the FBI and Department of Justice fed false allegations to federal spy courts in order to justify spying on Trump campaign affiliates.”
That resulted in the attacks from “left-wing dark money groups and Democratic activists.”
“Those activists teamed up with McClatchy, the publishing company that owns Nunes’ hometown paper, to peddle deranged and false allegations against Nunes in particular and Republicans in general,” the report said.
Nunes’ legal claims targeted the owners of two anonymous Twitter accounts and Liz Mair, who owns a company in Virginia. They allege negligence by the social media company in allowing and supporting defamation.
The complaint explains: “During Nunes re-election campaign in 2018, Mair conspired (and presumably was paid by) one or more as-yet unknown ‘clients’ to attack and smear Nunes. True to her word on LinkedIn, Mair relentlessly smeared and defamed Nunes during the campaign, filming stunts at Nunes’ office in Washington, D.C. and posting them online, publishing videos on YouTube that falsely accused Nunes of multiple crimes, repeatedly publishing false and defamatory statements on Twitter, defaming Nunes online and to the press, and filing fraudulent complaints against Nunes accusing him, inter alia, of violating House Ethics Rules.”
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has claimed in testimony to Congress that his company isn’t politically biased.
“If Twitter is forced to turn over documents showing that the company regularly censors conservative political content or shadow-bans conservative users, Dorsey could potentially face charges of lying to Congress,” the Federalist reported.
The decision to put Twitter on trial in Virginia, the report noted, means the company “could potentially be subject to negligence lawsuits throughout the country, wherever harm is delivered or felt as a result of the company’s failure to enforce its own rules and policies.”
The report noted that even worse for Twitter would be the “legal and enterprise liabilities going forward” if it “made claims to investors or Congress that were contradicted by internal documents.”
The results “could shape the legal environment for social media companies for years or decades to come,” the report said.
The Gateway Pundit reported Nunes’ reaction:
“Thankfully a judge now decided to agree with us that Twitter can be held accountable for its actions, for its negligence. So as many people know who have been on Twitter, especially if you’re a conservative, it’s quite often that things ‘randomly happen to you.’
You lose followers, some people can’t see what you post on Twitter, you get shadowbanned. In my case what was happening is they were allowing hundreds of accounts to slander and defame me on a daily basis. It was almost a minute-by-minute basis. Finally a judge said, ‘OK Twitter that’s it,’ rejected all of their arguments. And now that case is going to move forward in Virginia.”
SF Source WND Oct 2019