First Amendment
Twitter filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in California federal court. The lawsuit asks the judge to stop Paxton from investigating the company. That’s right – Paxton is investigating Twitter so Twitter is suing to stop the investigation. Paxton is a loyal Trump supporter. He attended the January 6 rally for Trump in Washington, After that day and its events, Twitter decided to ban Trump from its platform. Other social media platforms did the same thing. Paxton decided to open an investigation over that decision and sent Twitter a civil investigative demand. The demand asks for documents from Twitter that show the company’s internal decision-making processes for banning users. Twitter wants the judge to issue a temporary restraining order from enforcing the investigative demand. Both sides are using the First Amendment in their arguments. Twitter claims that Paxton’s investigation is a “retaliatory” action, inappropriate use of government authority. Paxton and other Texas Republicans launched a campaign against social media companies after they and their followers received repercussions for posts that promoted what were labeled false narratives about the presidential election results and allegedly led to the riot on Capitol Hill. Twitter is one of five tech and social media firms to which Paxton issued civil investigative demands.
