Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) did the most snowflake thing this week by filing a lawsuit against Twitter whining about alleged “shadow banning” and being mocked. And even Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano thinks it will likely not go far in court.
For months, conservatives have been accusing Twitter of censorship, including President Donald Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), both of whom have been schooled and humiliated over the claims because it turns out they had their social media filters turned on.
But Nunes has decided to embarrass himself even more by taking his whining in front of a court of law that Napolitano predicts will get laughed out of court.
According to The Daily Beast:
In the suit, Nunes accuses Twitter of having a “political agenda” by allowing two anonymous accounts—“Devin Nunes’ Mom” (@DevinNunesMom) and “Devin Nunes’ Cow” (@DevinCow)—and Mair to attack, defame, and demean him. The suit alleges the two Twitter accounts “engaged in a vicious defamation campaign against Nunes that lasted over a year,” and claims Mair “relentlessly smeared and defamed” the lawmaker by “filming stunts” at his D.C. office, accusing him of “multiple crimes,” and “filing fraudulent ethics complaints” against him. The lawsuit also claims Twitter shadow-banned Nunes, which “restrict[ed] his free speech” and “amplif[ied] the abusive and hateful content.”
But Napolitano pointed out on Tuesday morning that it’s hard for a public official to sue somebody for what they said because a politician has just as big a platform. Nunes’ does, in fact, have a Twitter account himself.
“I think it’s a novel litigation because we haven’t seen anything like this before,” Napolitano began. “Usually, when public officials sue because of what somebody said or didn’t say about them, they lose — the theory being, they have as big of a megaphone as the person who has harmed them.”
Furthermore, the First Amendment does not apply to Twitter because it’s not a government-controlled company.
“The First Amendment doesn’t regulate Twitter,” he said. “It’s a private entity.”
However, the First Amendment does apply to lawmaker-controlled Twitter accounts, which is why Trump could not block Twitter users.
Napolitano concluded that Nunes filed the suit for attention, which won’t impress the court at all.
“He may be doing this just to make a statement,” he said. “Sometimes courts don’t like to be used to make political statements, but we’ll see where this goes.”
Here’s the video via Twitter.
Fox’s Andrew Napolitano calls Devin Nunes’ lawsuit against getting owned online “a novel litigation” possibly designed just to get attention. pic.twitter.com/600dRVAkkn
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) March 19, 2019
Conservatives really need to stop acting like complete snowflakes, but as long as Trump and his thin skin are in office, Republicans are going to continue playing the victim because, in the end, they’re the ones who feel like they need safe spaces.
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