Ranking House Intel Committee Rep. Devin Nunes wants a big bite out of a bird. The Republican lawmaker filed a lawsuit against Twitter, as well as select user accounts, for $250 million.
The complaint? Suppression and slander.
Nunes claims that Twitter is doing everything it possibly can to stifle Republican and conservative voices alike, while letting liberal trolls loose — all with the purpose of influencing the 2018 midterm elections.
“Twitter, by its actions, intended to generate and proliferate the false and defamatory statements about Plaintiff in order to influence the outcome of the 2018 Congressional election and to intimidate Plaintiff and interfere with his important investigation of corruption by the Clinton campaign and alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election,” the lawsuit reads, according to The Hill.
Some were the alleged words form some of the user accounts highlighted in the lawsuit: Vicious accusation against GOP strategist Liz Mair and Mair Strategies, and a couple of fake accounts, “Devin Nunes’ Mom” (DevinNunesMom) and “Devin Nunes’ cow” (@DevinCow).
According to The Hill, Nunes is blaming Twitter for “facilitating defamation on its platform.”
“…ignoring lawful complaints about offensive content and by allowing that content to remain accessible to the public.”
Critics say the content wasn’t just offensive — it was actually grotesque.
For example, Twitter allowed a random person to impersonate Devin Nunes’ mother — for no reason other than to disparage the Nunes name. The lawsuit said that the account accused Nunes of “being a racist, having ‘white supremacist friends’ and distributing ‘disturbing inflammatory racial propaganda.’”
As for Mair, she’s been accused of smearing.
According to the lawsuit, she was helping to spread fake stories about Nunes, which linked Nunes to a prostitution and cocaine ring out of a winery.
An excerpt of the lawsuit also accuses Twitter of “shadow banning” — a tactic that silences social media accounts without them being knowingly banned. And as a result, conservatives are increasingly finding out that their’ words have been silenced as tech companies increasingly side with Democrats.
The censorship is striking. Imagine the level of scrutiny and sympathy that would occur if Nunes had been a Democrat?
GOP mistreatment by Silicon Valley techies has left many Republicans and conservatives resentful and distrusting. They aren’t getting a fair shake.
What began in social media as a way to connect and share and keep the world closer has devolved into bored people who dedicate their lives to harassing Devin Nunes.
Now, Nunes is fighting back.
—The Horn editorial team