By Aaron Miller-
Devin Nunes has launched a gigantic lawsuit against Twitter and several of its users for defamation of character of the highest degree.
The Republican congressman is seeking $250m (£188m) in damages for “abusive, hateful and defamatory” content allegedly hosted on Twitter, which the suit claims was intended to interfere with the investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential election. This is the first known legal suit against the giant social media company, who are not short of funds to defend the case.
Twitter’s reputation could suffer irreparable damage if found guilty, and astronomical sums of compensation could follow.The complaint, filed in a Virginia state court on Monday is broad in its allegations but make specific reference to the accounts “Devin Nunes’ Mom” (@DevinNunesMom) and “Devin Nunes’ cow” (@DevinCow), as well as Republican communications consultant and critic of Mr Nunes, Liz Mair.
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SMEAR CAMPAIGN
Nunes claims the smear campaign had an immediate effect that caused one of the accounts gained more than 60,000 followers. The complaint claims a Republican political strategist named Liz Mair fueled a campaign targeting Nunes
Republican congressman Devin Nunes of California has said that tweets from the parody accounts @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow violate the platform’s Terms of Service.According to the lawsuit, the @DevinNunesMom account was suspended following a complaint by Mr Nunes’ real mother.
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Their offending tweets accuse the Republican of federal crimes and describe him engaging in sexual activities with US president Donald Trump.
“Twitter knew the defamation was (and is) happening. Twitter let it happen because Twitter had (and has) a political agenda”, he wrote in a 40-page complaint. Numes claims to have suffered “substantial insult, humiliation, embarrassment, pain, mental suffering and damage to his reputation” from the Twitter insults.
Mr Nunes served as the chair of the US House Intelligence Committee until 2019. He was at the centre of an investigation of the House Ethics Committee in 2017, after he released a memo claiming that the intelligence community monitored communications between members of Trump’s transition team (of which he was a part). He was cleared of any wrongdoing.
The Nunes memo was a four-page memorandum was released to the public by the Republican-controlled committee in February 2 2018, alleging that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) “may have relied on politically motivated or questionable sources” to obtain a Foreign Intelligence. The Congressman is now claiming that Twitter “selectively amplified” tweets that attempted to distract him from that investigation.
The content referred to in the complaint includes a human centipede-style diagram of waste passing from Russian president Vladimir Putin to U.S president Donald Trump, then passing to Mr Nunes. The caption of the diagram, posted by the “Devin Nunes’ Mom” account, stated: “Here’s a helpful diagram to explain their relationship.”
DEFAMATION
The extraordinary lawsuit accuses the @DevinNunesCow account of making defamatory remarks about the Republican to its 1,204 Twitter followers. At the time of writing, the account is still active and now has more than 66,000 followers. Mr Nunes also accuses Twitter of shadow-banning his account by using algorithms to make certain posts invisible to other users.
The lawsuit is an added burden on the shoulders of Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, who has been striving to boost constructive discussions on his lucrative social media platform. His platform will now serve host to several reports about the grand lawsuit, but Dorsey and his co beneficiaries of the social media innovation can provide a defence of limited scope on their platform, saving the rest for the intense court battle which lies ahead.
Twitter Boss: Jack Dorsey
Dorsey has been the subject of numerous criticism ever since his clever creation became a world wide phenomenon. Criticisms have included the failure for twitter to quickly detect rogue and hate filled tweets on their platforms, and the allegation of shadow banning that makes the tweets of selected users invisible though appearing visible from the end of the user.
The social media giant has always insisted it does not ban users on the basis of political ideology. The case will be globally followed.
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