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Devin Nunes Faces an Uphill Battle in His Lawsuit Against Twitter (nbcnews.com)
Devin Nunes, R-Calif., escalated the feud between conservatives and Twitter earlier this week with a lawsuit accusing the company of defamation and negligence -- two different allegations, one of which poses a more serious question for the social media platform and technology companies in general. Nunes is claiming that Twitter negligently violated its terms of service when it allowed people onto its online "premises" to say false or disparaging things about him. He is seeking $250 million in damages due to "pain, insult, embarrassment, humiliation, emotional distress and mental suffering, and injury to [Nunes'] personal and professional reputations" brought on by what Twitter users said about him.
From a report: Defamation is an interesting legal matter to discuss, at least in theory, but suing for defamation is seldom profitable in reality. Negligence may not sound as exciting as defamation, but this theory of liability quietly drives most successful civil litigation. Relatively easy to prove, it generally requires that the defendant show conduct that came up short of what can be expected, and that this shortcoming caused the plaintiff's damages. [...] The primary reason that technology companies are not sued into oblivion is the existence of the Communications Decency Act, or CDA, and in particular Section 230, which states that providers of an interactive computer service shall not be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. Ordinarily, a lawsuit like this is properly filed against the Twitter user or account (like "Devin Nunes' Mom") and not Twitter itself.
Section 230 and the CDA have become the targets of growing backlash against the idea that technology companies should not be held responsible for what is published on their platforms. Technology companies have voluntarily taken steps to moderate some content, such as extremism, conspiracy theories and fake news, but most personal insults and parodies are still allowed to flourish. Section 230, however, isn't necessarily bulletproof. At least one federal court has stressed that the statute does not "create a lawless no-man's-land on the internet." That provides some basis for Nunes' claim that Twitter has been negligent in keeping its platform from being used to spread damaging statements about him. But a negligence claim against Twitter may still be precluded by the CDA. The test is whether the cause of action requires the court to treat Twitter as the publisher or speaker of content provided by another. In the meantime, one of the Twitter parody accounts that is mocking Nunes -- Devin Nunes' Cow (@DevinCow) -- has gained a lot of attention, with its followers count jumping from about 1200 followers last week to more than 615,000 followers -- and in doing so, surpassed the number of followers Devin Nunes has (about 399k).
Section 230 and the CDA have become the targets of growing backlash against the idea that technology companies should not be held responsible for what is published on their platforms. Technology companies have voluntarily taken steps to moderate some content, such as extremism, conspiracy theories and fake news, but most personal insults and parodies are still allowed to flourish. Section 230, however, isn't necessarily bulletproof. At least one federal court has stressed that the statute does not "create a lawless no-man's-land on the internet." That provides some basis for Nunes' claim that Twitter has been negligent in keeping its platform from being used to spread damaging statements about him. But a negligence claim against Twitter may still be precluded by the CDA. The test is whether the cause of action requires the court to treat Twitter as the publisher or speaker of content provided by another. In the meantime, one of the Twitter parody accounts that is mocking Nunes -- Devin Nunes' Cow (@DevinCow) -- has gained a lot of attention, with its followers count jumping from about 1200 followers last week to more than 615,000 followers -- and in doing so, surpassed the number of followers Devin Nunes has (about 399k).
Dude has a pretty high opinion of himself, been hanging around Trump too long.
He's a Trump lap dog. Why did the people in his CA district vote for him in 2018? It doesn't make any fucking sense. When I see his kind of shit, I just feel like there's no hope.
If he really thinks anyone could further inure his personal and professional reputation, he's delusional.
The lawsuit isn't really about winning. He's trying to force Twitter's blatant hypocrisy into the spotlight. Try and create an account called "Obama's Cow" or "Hillary Clinton's Mom" and see how fast Twitter bans you.
Part of his lawsuit also contains discovery to try and force Twitter to admit that they shadowbanned him, causing his tweets not to show up in search results and causing his (and other conservative accounts) not to be capable of influencing what Twitter considers "trending." It's well known that Twitter routinely shadowbans prominent conservatives, to the point that Jack Dorsey has even admitted such, but there's never been any real proof or any consequence to it. I suspect the lawsuit is to more intended to generate headlines and make people aware of what Twitter's doing, than expecting to be able to actually win a $250M judgement.
I was driving into work this morning and heard Devin Nunes' Cow referenced on a popular SiriusXM rock radio station!
It never fails to see a Republican throw out all of their "supposed beliefs" to get back at someone because their little ego's are hurt.
Just like how the republicans are all for the 2nd until they see black folks with guns... but that is all good.
Before he filed this law suit I was only vaguely aware of Nunes as a particularly unintelligent brown-nosing Washington Congress critter. I had never heard of those Twitter accounts and I had never seen that human centipede drawing of Putin, Trump and Nunes rimming each other. Now they are printing that drawing on T-shirts and showing them on national TV, This guy is an even bigger dummy that I thought he was, if he'd just let it slide the vast majority of the people on this planet would not have heard of @DevinNunesMom and @DevinNunesCow.
...and still my impression of him is that his head is planted firmly up his ass. I think that impression comes from hearing him speak. Could it be that he really is a fucking moron and that Twitter just exposed him for what he really is?
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Yahoo, twitter and FB et al haven't silenced you nutjobs, Alex is still 100% free to speak, just not allowed to make someone else print his bollocks. The only ones trying to suppress political speech is nunes here (he doesn't want people talking smack about this politiician, which is political speech) and trump (he keeps bleating on about how CNN et al should be investigated and libel laws beefed up to silence "the fake news media").
If I own a bar, and a patron of that bar says something disparaging about someone else, am I liable? Am I responsible for going to around to everyone who was in the bar that day and correcting the disparager? Come on.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Please post a single link to a verified account calling for violent assault on the Covington teens. Not merely disagreement, actual violent assault.
I'm going to guess that the lack of arrests made (you know that encouraging violence is illegal, right?) means you're another stupid right winger who has no idea what's going on in Twitter (clue: it's more white supremacist friendly these days than left wing friendly) but believes it must be discriminating against you because... uh, everyone is! Yeah, right wing white men are the most oppressed people in history!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
No, this particular kind of lawsuit wasn't predicted by Popper circa 1945, but it's a great example of how it works in action.
I actually think Trump's so-called free-speech executive order is a slightly more sophisticated attack on tolerance. The real idea is to make is easier for intolerant people to attack tolerance. NOT to suggest that #PresidentTweety possesses the sophistication. The executive order was probably dictated over Trump's iPhone by Steve Bannon, that poster child of intolerance.
Next amusing thought of the day: Steve King is actively campaigning for Pence's job in 2020.
By the way, there are a number of cow-related Twitter accounts you might want to follow. https://twitter.com/search?q=%... is obvious, but if you search on Twitter for "DevinNunes" you'll see an entire herd of them.
Jesus H. Mother Fucking Christ, how brain-dead do you have to be to think that "progressives" are "tolerant".
Saying, "No, you don't deserve FWEEEEE STUFFFZZ!!!" isn't racist, bigoted, or intolerant.
The fact that "progressives" are so thin-skinned while being so damn easy to mock over their dreams of authoritarian, statist, forced wealth redistribution is obvious to anyone not drowning in the "progressive" Kool-aide.
this is part of the broader "left wing media bias" narrative that the right wing has worked hard to establish.
For anyone who remembers what came out about MSNBC and Bernie after 2016, or pays attention to the coverage of him now vs the establishment candidates like Beto, Biden & Harris, or remembers when the media closed ranks to promote the Iraq War or the 2008 Bank Bailout you know the media's bias is hard right when it counts: economics.
Hell, the media was center-right on Gay Marriage until around 2014 or so. Go watch them grill Bernie on Medicare for All while giving Biden a pass on his attacks on Social Security. All this before Sinclair media bought out every local TV station.
And we shouldn't be surprised about the media's biases when it comes to the economy or the stuff that really matters. Look at who owns them. Always, always, always follow the money.
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Can we please stop calling Republicans that? Republicans being right-of-center is so pre-2016. These are the guys who had the presidency and control of both houses, and are still giving us the biggest deficit ever. These are the guys who tax imports, deport immigrants, and anything else they can think of for government to act against free markets. "FUCK FREE MARKETS" is basically what got Trump elected, and Nunes did everything he could to protect the president from law enforcement and congressional oversight.
They don't even resemble conservatives. They're on the left. Maybe not "progressive" but definitely far left (turns out there's a lot of totally different ways to be left-wing, i.e. break from every goddamn tradition and overturn every institution).
Even on the 2nd amendment (that's right, we'll pick conservatives' favorite), Trump's position is "take guns first and worry about due process second."
Good grief, how would anyone peg today's Republicans as conservative?! Are you even trying? Please tell me that entire fucking political spectrum doesn't simply boil down to abortion and nothing-but abortion. Because that's the only thing Republicans still have in common with conservatives.
(This is all irrespective of whether their politics are good or bad. I'm not going to defend or attack free markets, constitutional limits, the 2nd amendment, upholding the law, or responsible budgeting here, right now. I'm just talking about whether it's most accurate to characterize them as right or left.)
Trump is a liberal. Nunes is a liberal. They're both more liberal than the relatively conservative Pelosi, and roughly about even with AOC (in various ways, give or take).
What law, specifically, do you think that Twitter is breaking? I'm confused.
I don't respond to AC's.
Progressives are tolerant. They aren't tolerant of assholes who are intolerant of ordinary humans, though, and you aren't tolerant of being intolerated for being intolerant, yet you will only whinge about OUR intolerance to you, not yours to just about everyone else.
Make your wild accusations child, you only convince those who already want to believe that "everyone is intolerant, so mine for blacks/muzzies/lefties/ecology/science/blah is fine!". Nobody with a gram of brain will be convinced by your lame accusations.
It's hilarious how those on the "right" are constantly going on about "snowflakes" and "safe spaces" when their representatives like Trump and his minions like Nunes are the biggest collection of whiny, thin-skinned tantrumming snowflakes around.
Because you're not *really* tolerant unless you let Nazis and the KKK march on your property. That is the kind of "real" tolerance the right is so hungry for, eh?
https://www.bing.com/search?q=...
Enjoy.
we can enforce and change the ToS as we see fit, pray we don't change it further" doesn't stand up in a court of law in the rest of the country
I like how you think the right to free association does not exist in "the rest of the country"
Nunes is from a family that primarily made it's money by ranching. And then real estate.
Part of Nunes campaign's tactics were to refer to that ranching history, in an attempt to make him more "down home" and "regular working-class guy".
The cows were shipped to Iowa many years ago. Nunes has about as much connection to living, breathing cattle as Theresa May does.
A few moments on google should be enough to depose yourself of that idea, this
Beto's been overwhelmingly right win in his votes. He's a "New" Democrat, aka a Clinton Democrat. Just like Biden he "reaches across the isle", which is to say he votes with the GOP 80% of the time.
If that's what you want find. But please do go to the polls thinking your voting for a lefty or even a centrist. Beto is very much right wing, and it's only the crazy shifts in the Overton window that make him appear to be anything else. If you want a left wing candidate your choices are Bernie or Warren.
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He better not turn on his TV, he'll find the late-night shows are all having a good laugh about this too...suing Twitter in this way makes about as much sense as suing his TV manufacturer for 'providing' similar commentary.
No, this particular kind of lawsuit wasn't predicted by Popper circa 1945, but it's a great example of how it works in action.
I actually think Trump's so-called free-speech executive order is a slightly more sophisticated attack on tolerance. The real idea is to make is easier for intolerant people to attack tolerance.
Oh god not this crap again. Paradoxes are not real things. They don't exist in nature. The extent to which they appear to exist at all is underwritten by ignorance of the person considering the paradox.
Bigger issue here is "paradox" language is nothing more than an unnecessary source of confusion. This language has been used as cover for legitimizing indefensible behavior. (Antifa et el)
The concept Jefferson, KP and crew are contemplating centers on preservation of an environment where rational discourse can take place and very little beyond that.
The "paradox" is a reflection of the inconvenient reality attempting to censor speech is far more damaging to society than advocating for genocide against left handed freaks of nature.
SJW's on campus going bonkers shutting down speech they disagree with is a bigger problem than marching bands with swastikas on their foreheads playing horst wessel.
Trump's EO is a damn good idea given unchecked SJW craziness. Pence should keep it in force long after Trump has been dragged out of office and sent to jail.
Moo.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Nothing you wrote actually disagrees with the Paradox of Tolerance. Possible cases:
(1) You haven't read it.
(2) You can't understand it.
(3) Both.
I have no reason to tolerate your intolerance or to recommend additional readings. This "discussion" appears to be concluded.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Same reply as to the other troll. This "discussion" appears to be concluded.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Seems more like an attack on Twatter's hypocrisy.
Either they can be a common carrier, with free speech for all. Or they can be a publisher, censor whomever they feel like, and take full legal responsibility for the "approved" Twats they allow to be published on their definitely-not-free-speech platform.
Z^-1
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I keep track of this pretty closely. It seems about 80% of violent rhetoric is from the Right. Often it is disguised somewhat as a joke. For example, congressman Steve King "joking" about a civil war and who has all the guns if there was one.
If I were looking for this kind of crap to shadow ban, who would get hit more? Conservatives or liberals? Why yes, it would look kind of biased, because one side can't seem to win in a fair election....thinks it is OK to start shooting to remedy that.
Maybe things look biased for a reason???
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
"Fake moos" from the fake moderators, eh? Thanks for proving my point.
(I confess it took me a minute to get the joke. Think about it in the context of #PresidentTweety's great enemies of the state.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I provided a medium through which speech could propagate - the air inside the bar. Or supposing my bar is on a planet with no air, and everyone communicates through radio in their pressure-suit helmets. In any case, is transmitting speech the same as speaking?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
While I'm not "the right", I will say that *real* tolerance absolutely demands it:
https://www.aclu.org/other/acl...
The problem here is that the leftists have decided that anybody right of Bernie Sanders is a hateful Nazi, so Ben Shapiro or Milo Yiannopoulos are disinvited from speaking. They're both Jews, in case you're wondering.
If we let them keep nazis and the KKK from marching, what we end up with is conservative Jews being discriminated against. I'll take the ACLU's side on this one.
Do you have ESP?