Twitter sues Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

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Twitter filed a lawsuit against Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in a California federal court on Monday and asked a judge to stop the state’s top attorney from investigating the company.

The lawsuits of the social media giant include a request for a temporary restraining order that would prevent Paxton and his office from executing a lawsuit seeking documents that reveal the company’s internal decision-making processes to ban users, among other things.

Paxton, a fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump, sent the company a civil investigative demand after it banned Trump from his platform after the deadly January siege on the United States Capitol.

Twitter wrote that it seeks to prevent Paxton from “illegally abusing his authority as the highest law enforcement officer in the State of Texas to intimidate, harass and target Twitter in retaliation for Twitter’s exercise of its First Amendment rights.” The company claimed that Paxton’s “retaliatory” investigation violated the First Amendment as an inappropriate use of government authority.

A spokesman for Paxton did not immediately respond for comment.

Before Democratic President Joe Biden took office, Paxton filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn election results in four battlefield states. It was considered a long shot, but it attracted the support of Republican attorney generals from 17 other states before the U.S. Supreme Court rejected it strongly.

The attorney general is among the Republican leaders in Texas who launched a campaign against technology and social media companies after officials and followers faced repercussions for sowing the electoral doubts that fueled the Capitol insurrection.

Twitter is one of five technology and social media companies to which Paxton has issued civil investigation demands to learn more about the procedures these companies use to regulate posts or user accounts.

Paxton, who attended the rally that preceded the attack on the United States Capitol, criticized the companies’ actions after the siege, which included Twitter banning Trump from his platform.

“The apparently coordinated decentralization of the President of the United States and several important voices not only chills freedom of speech, but totally silences those whose speech and political beliefs do not align with Big Tech business leaders,” Paxton said in a January 13 statement the press.

Last week, Governor Greg Abbott praised Texas legislation that aims to crack down on the perception of censorship of conservative voices by social media companies. The Senate Bill 12 would prohibit social media companies – including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – from blocking, banning, demonetizing or otherwise discriminating against a user based on their view or location in Texas.

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, who chairs the Texas Senate, identified the bill as one of his 31 priorities for this legislative session. State Senator Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, is sponsoring the measure. He introduced a similar bill in 2019 that won Senate approval, but died on a committee in the state chamber.

In its archives on Monday, Twitter detailed the suspension of several accounts, including Trump’s personal account, which was banned for its false allegations about the presidential election and the January 6 attacks on the United States Capitol. Five days after the president’s Twitter account was suspended on January 8, Paxton issued civil investigation demands to Twitter and four other technology and social media companies.

In the process, Twitter said that while the company “strives for transparency”, public disclosure of such documents “would compromise Twitter’s ability to moderate content effectively and efficiently on its platform”.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have been criticized for allowing the spread of misinformation and the spread of violence like the January 6 attacks. Last year, Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill in Congress that would hold social media companies accountable for amplifying such content, but the proposal has gained little traction.

The Twitter lawsuit arrives as Paxton faces a number of other legal issues, including allegations of abuse of office and bribery. Former aides claim that the attorney general used his power to assist an Austin real estate developer in legal matters after he helped Paxton renovate his home and employed a woman with whom Paxton allegedly had an affair. The whistleblowers’ allegations would have triggered an FBI investigation.

Four of the former advisers say they were fired in retaliation for telling authorities that they believed Paxton had done illegal favors to a political donor and are suing. During a March 1 denunciation hearing, which Paxton did not attend, lawyers representing his office argued that Paxton is not a civil servant and cannot be prosecuted under the Texas Whistleblower Act. The attorney general had previously rejected the claims against him as “false allegations” by “dishonest employees”.