Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California is suing Twitter and several of its users for more than $250 million, accusing them of defamation and negligence.
The defendants include two anonymous parody accounts, “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ Cow.”
The suit filed in Virginia accuses Twitter of “knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly abusive, hateful and defamatory.”
Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act provides internet services with immunity from liability for material posted by their users.
Nunes’ suit also accuses Twitter of censoring “viewpoints with which it disagrees” and “shadow-banning conservatives.”
Shadow banning allows users to post freely — but no one else sees their messages. Twitter has denied doing it, although some political conservatives —including President Donald Trump — remain unconvinced.
(AP)
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2 Responses
There is a federal statute exempting social media from liability for defamation of materials posted on their websites. He might win if he limits his demand to asking the social media to reveal who posted the offensive materials, though as a public figure, he couldn’t sue over parodies or sarcasm, even if it were printed.
It should be noted that in many countries, posting something nasty about a politician results in the poster disappearing into a gulag, but American law regards parody and sarcasm about politicians to be civil right.
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