Twitter is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), seeking to block his office from allegedly retaliating against the company for its decision to ban former President Trump from the platform.
Politico first reported the lawsuit Monday evening, filed in northern California. The suit accuses Paxton of using the powers of his elected office to retaliate against the company over what it called a protected decision under the First Amendment.
The Hill has reached out to the Texas attorney general for comment.
“Paxton made clear that he will use the full weight of his office, including his expansive investigatory powers, to retaliate against Twitter for having made editorial decisions with which he disagrees,” Twitter attorneys said in court documents, according to Politico.
“Twitter seeks to stop AG Paxton from unlawfully abusing his authority as the highest law-enforcement officer of the State of Texas to intimidate, harass, and target Twitter in retaliation for Twitter’s exercise of its First Amendment rights,” they continued, according to Politico.
How about this wild idea? Governor dictates that any and all Texas State twit accounts go dormant until twit fully restores all US based accounts it has banned since Jan 1, 2021. No outbound messages and no reading of any that are inbound. Freeze them in a soft way. Any violations by state employees will be treated as insubordination and violators terminated.
“Paxton made clear that he will use the full weight of his office, including his expansive investigatory powers, to retaliate against Twitter for having made editorial decisions with which he disagrees,” Twitter attorneys said in court documents, according to Politico.
So, by their own admission, they are editors of all user content, thereby not protected by Section 230.
POOF.