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Paxton Wins Legal Battle Against Twitter in Fight for Free Speech and Transparency
AUSTIN – Attorney General Paxton has defeated Twitter in court once again after the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to reconsider its decision throwing out Twitter’s lawsuit against Attorney General Paxton.
In January 2021, Attorney General Paxton issued civil investigative demands (“CIDs”) to Twitter to determine whether Twitter’s widespread content moderation and censorship policies violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Rather than cooperate with the investigation, Twitter attempted to avoid transparency by suing Attorney General Paxton and alleging, baselessly, that the investigation chilled its free speech and even by asserting that its publicly-stated content moderation policies were mere puffery.
After a district court dismissed Twitter’s lawsuit, and Twitter appealed, a three-judge appellate panel ruled that the lawsuit was not prudentially ripe. Twitter next sought reconsideration by the full court. That request was rejected without even a vote, and the panel amended its decision to hold that Twitter’s lawsuit was not just prudentially unripe but constitutionally unripe.
From the beginning, Twitter’s lawsuit has been nothing more than a thinly-veiled distraction. And recently reported details contained within the “Twitter Files” have confirmed that Twitter’s censorship policies were just as bad, if not worse, than what Attorney General Paxton was seeking to investigate and as many free speech advocates have been saying all along.
“I’ve been asking Twitter for years to answer questions about its content moderation and large-scale censorship, but Twitter’s only response has been to try and hide behind its bogus lawsuits against me,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Now that yet another court has ruled in our favor and more details surrounding Twitter’s censorship have come to light, I look forward to helping get to the bottom of any actions that the company took to mislead consumers.”
To read the full opinion, click here.
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