Sponsor of the "Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act" sues Twitter cow-account for $250 million

[doctorow]

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/20/snowflakes-r-us.html

…

[Papasan]

Devin Nunes…

[anon27007144]

Wouldn’t this lawsuit be dismissed out of hand? I thought there was clear precedent for satire and parody being protected speech.

[BigBoppa]

Apparently, Devin Nunes has never heard of Barbara Streisand.

[Grey_Devil]

[Akimbo_NOT]

The only good thing that ever came from the movie was this meme.

Suits him well.

[HappyHead]

falsely stated that “The people of California’s Central Valley are upright folk who work hard, look you square in the eye and give you a firm handshake. And then there is @DevinNunes”;

Wait… Does this mean that Devin Nunes feels that the people of California’s Central Valley are NOT upright folk who work hard, look you square in the eye, and give you a firm handshake?

Can they sue him for saying that?

[generic_name]

For that diagram to be 100% accurate there should be several million more right-wingers connected to Nunes’ posterior.

[LurksNoMore]

He only meant to discourage lawsuits against right-wing assholes, liars and traitors.

[Loozrboy]

falsely stated that “Alpha Omega wines taste like treason”

Well, good luck proving that one. Everyone knows wine tasting is subjective bullshit; where you swear you can pick out blackcurrant and licorice, I may detect notes of treason and asshole.

[Bozobub]

It’s “Devin.”

[cepheus42]

Satire, parody, AND political speech. He’s hit the triumvirate of “reasons why the judge is going to laugh themselves off their seats.”

[cepheus42]

No he has not. Devin Cow went from 1200 followers to over 300,000 this morning thanks to Devin.

[euansmith]

Barbara Who? I’m going to have to look her up.

[Akimbo_NOT]

[Oo_oO]

falsely accused Nunes of being part of the President’s “taint” team;

[GiantRobotPilot]

[L0ki]

Oh, none of this is getting to the real joy of this lawsuit which as ever with anything vaguely modern is watching/reading lawyers trying to explain the wonders of the modern web to judges in terms that will make sense in the court record, i.e. explain it to an alien.

Example (and note this is the opening sentence…):

I. INTRODUCTION

1. Twitter is an information content provider^1.

*1 The term “information content provider” means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service. See Title 47U.S.C. § 230(f)(3). The word responsible ordinarily has a normative connotation. See The Oxford English Dictionary 742 (2nd ed. 1998) (stating one definition of responsible as “Morally accountable for one’s actions.”). As one authority puts it: “[W]hen we say,‘Every man is responsible for his own actions,’ we do not think definitely of any authority, law, or tribunal before which he must answer, but rather of the general law of right, the moral constitution of the universe…” James C. Fernald, Funk & WagnallsStandard Handbook of Synonyms, Antonyms, and Prepositions 366 (1947). Synonyms for responsibility in this context are blame, fault, guilt, and culpability. See Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus 747 (2nd ed. 2008). Accordingly, to be “responsible” for the development of offensive content, such as defamation, one must be more than a neutral conduit for that content. One is not “responsible” for the development of offensive content if one’s conduct was neutral with respect to the offensiveness of the content (as would be the case with the typical Internet bulletin board). We would not ordinarily say that one who builds a highway is “responsible” for the use of that highway by a fleeing bank robber, even though the culprit’s escape was facilitated by the availability of the highway. Twitter is “responsible” for the development of offensive content on its platform because it in some way specifically encourages development of what is offensive about the content. FTC v. Accusearch, Inc., 570 F.3d 1187, 1198-1199(10th Cir. 2009) (citing Fair Housing of Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC, 521 F.3d 1157, 1168 (9th Cir. 2008) (“a website helps to develop unlawful content …if it contributes materially to the alleged illegality of the conduct.”).

We then move on to say that Twitter creates and develops (yes, we get a whole footnote on what ‘develops’ means) content (ditto). And so it continues.

AKA - I’ve either just graduated from law school and haven’t yet worked out that I don’t have to regurgitate every bit of law I learned in every pleading or I’m getting paid by the yard…

Nunes Complaint - 3.18.19 | PDF | Defamation | Harassment

To be fair, he’s not just suing Twitter. He alleges that there was a paid campaign to smear him using Twitter and is also suing the person he alleges was paid to do that.

I think even under the US’s wide protections for free speech that is potentially actionable.

Claiming that @DevinNunesMom falsely impersonated Mr Nunes’s mother is certainly pushing it though.

I’m not sure whether they’re also going to claim that Twitter allowed someone to falsely impersonate one of his cows…

Checks- no they don’t. They do however manage to include sentences such as:

Devin Nunes’ cow has made, published and republished hundreds of false and defamatory statements of and concerning Nunes […]

without any apparent sense of humour.

He also alleges that Twitter “shadow-banned” him just before the election thereby preventing him from electioneering.

That will be interesting.

Part of their argument is that politicians must have access to Twitter in order to speak to the electorate.

In other words, Twitter should be prohibited from blocking/banning or otherwise censoring anyone who is an electoral candidate (at minimum, presumably that logic would also apply to anyone who might at some time be thinking about taking part in public affairs).

They don’t quite go that far in this suit. They only argue that Twitter has a duty to exercise reasonable care in its operation of the site but logically, the next step has to follow.

If Twitter has a duty not to kick off politicians casually because Twitter access is a vital part of campaigning, how can they kick off politicians who say stuff that violates their terms of service as part of their campaign? ie. Trump, etc.

[anon21100188]

I don’t there there are any objective legal experts, anyone who took a ConLaw class in law school, or anyone who has been in the room when a Law & Order or Judge Judy episode was on who would argue that this case has any chance in hell on the merits.

BUT, if the point is less about winning this particular case than it is riling up an idiot base about how (((Big Media))) is conspiring against conservatives and to put another stone in the foundation of Trump’s justification for more regulation of speech, it may have a shot.

@L0ki

He alleges that there was a paid campaign to smear him using Twitter and is also suing the person he alleges was paid to do that.

Which seems to be a potential issue of campaign finance violations rather than defamation or conspiracy, no?

[RickMycroft]

What a steaming pool of santorum!