SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is fighting back against Twitter after it sued him for alleged retaliation for its decision to ban former President Donald Trump from its platform.
Paxton says Twitter was wrong to sue him in California federal court, arguing a Texas agency could not be “at home” in California and the conduct at issue occurred in Texas.
Twitter’s lawsuit focuses on Paxton urging the Federal Communications Commission to construe a provision of federal law after Twitter censored tweets from Trump. Paxton has also filed a civil investigative demand to see Twitter’s content moderation policies.
Because nothing has come of that demand, Paxton says while citing a dispute between Google and the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, Twitter’s challenge to it is premature.
“Twitter admits that its claim is ‘premature’ under Google,” the motion says. “And Twitter does not try to distinguish Google. Indeed, it acknowledges that the CID it received is also not self-executing and that CPD ‘has not yet sued to enforce it.’
“Instead, Twitter argues that Google ‘is not binding’ in the Ninth Circuit.”
According to the lawsuit, Texas AG Ken Paxton has a long history of complaints with Twitter and other social media/big tech companies, including accusing them of censoring or stifling conservative voices and opinions on the platform and internet.
Paxton complained on Fox News about Twitter censoring false or misleading content regarding election and voting practices in May of last year, and called the platform "politically biased," the suit says.
In September 2020, Paxton filed a comment with the Federal Communications Commission urging the FCC to construe a provision of federal law after Twitter continued to censor false and misleading tweets from former president Donald Trump, the suit says.
Twitter says that Trump's inappropriate tweets increased in frequency after the November 2020 election, until he spoke to a crowd in January of this year where he continued to insist the election was stolen, and encouraged the crowd to march to the Capitol Building, to "fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."
After Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter, Paxton tweeted that he would "fight [Twitter] with all he's got."
Paxton then filed a civil investigative demand to see Twitter's content moderation policies, despite Twitter having a First Amendment right to its highly confidential internal documents, the suit claims.
Paxton is sued for violating the First Amendment with his retaliatory investigation, and asks the court to cease Paxton's investigation and allow a restraining order for Twitter against the attorney and his office.