{"id":205421,"date":"2021-03-09T19:00:17","date_gmt":"2021-03-10T00:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=205421"},"modified":"2021-03-09T19:00:19","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T00:00:19","slug":"twitter-suing-texas-ag-over-probe-into-trump-ban-company-cites-first-amendment-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/twitter-suing-texas-ag-over-probe-into-trump-ban-company-cites-first-amendment-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter Suing Texas AG Over Probe Into Trump Ban, Company Cites \u2018First Amendment Rights\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftwitter-suing-texas-ag-over-probe-into-trump-ban-company-cites-first-amendment-rights%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=205421&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/GettyImages-1027231380-e1610675046564.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Twitter is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, seeking to halt his state\u2019s investigation into the Big Tech company\u2019s move to ban President Donald Trump from its platform.<\/p>\n<p>Paxton launched a probe into Big Tech\u2019s apparently coordinated deplatforming of Trump in January.<\/p>\n<p>Twitter is claiming they were \u201ctargeted\u201d by Paxton as a form of retaliation for exercising their \u201cFirst Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s suit was filed&nbsp;in a California federal court Monday, asking the judge to stop Paxton\u2019s probe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"t-align-left\">\u201cThe social media giant\u2019s court filings include a request for a temporary restraining order that would keep Paxton and his office from enforcing a demand that seeks documents revealing the company\u2019s internal decision making processes for banning users, among other things,\u201d the Texas Tribune <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2021\/03\/08\/twitter-texas-ken-paxton\/\">reported<\/a> Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"t-align-left\">Paxton sent Twitter a civil investigative demand after the company banned Trump following the breach of the U.S. Capitol. Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook were sent letters from the Republican as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"t-align-left\">\u201cThe seemingly coordinated de-platforming of the President of the United States and several leading voices not only chills free speech, it wholly silences those whose speech and political beliefs do not align with leaders of Big Tech companies,\u201d Paxton <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texasattorneygeneral.gov\/news\/releases\/ag-paxton-issues-civil-investigative-demands-five-leading-tech-companies-regarding-discriminatory\">announced<\/a> on Jan. 13.<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-plugin c-plugin--flush\">\n<div class=\"c-plugin__inner\">\n<div id=\"ad-unit-5530\" class=\"js-ad-unit\">\n<p class=\"t-align-left\">Twitter said in its suit that Paxton was \u201cunlawfully abusing his authority as the highest law-enforcement officer of the State of Texas to intimidate, harass, and target Twitter in retaliation for Twitter\u2019s exercise of its First Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"t-align-left\">Paxton\u2019s actions were \u201cretaliatory\u201d and violated the First Amendment as an inappropriate use of government authority, Twitter also alleged, according to the Texas Tribune.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Last week,&nbsp;Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/abbott-moves-to-end-big-tech-viewpoint-censorship-un-american-and-soon-to-be-illegal-in-texas\">announced<\/a> that he\u2019s seeking to outlaw viewpoint discrimination on social media.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0\">\u201cI am joining [state&nbsp;Sen. Bryan Hughes]<\/span><span class=\"css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0\">&nbsp;to announce a bill prohibiting social media companies from censoring viewpoints,\u201d the governor said late Thursday night via Twitter.&nbsp;<\/span>\u201cToo many social media sites silence conservative speech and ideas and trample free speech. It\u2019s un-American, Un-Texan, &amp; soon to be illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Texas is not the only state seeking to end viewpoint discrimination from Big Tech.<\/p>\n<p>Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Fox News host Tucker Carlson last month that he\u2019s looking to protect Floridians\u2019 data privacy, add daily fines to tech companies that deplatform political candidates, and open up a channel for lawsuits against Big Tech from Floridians who\u2019ve been censored over their viewpoint.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think they\u2019re we\u2019re going to do three different things,\u201d DeSantis <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/florida-governor-ron-desantis-reveals-3-things-his-state-is-doing-to-take-on-tech-companies\">told<\/a> Carlson. \u201cOne is protect Floridian\u2019s data privacy from big tech, which is a huge issue, as you said, protect big tech from interfering in an election. And that may mean you display you deplatform, a candidate you don\u2019t like\u2013two guesses as to which type of candidate big tech wouldn\u2019t like\u2013but it also means doing the algorithms in a way that will suppress stories, or accelerate them to benefit a candidate, that\u2019s effectively an in kind contribution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd then the general protections for deplatforming users and what we\u2019re allowing people to do is bring civil suits under the Florida deceptive and unfair trade practices statute and anti-fraud statute and also allowing the state attorney general to do that as well, if big tech is not applying their terms of service in a in a coherent and principled way, which they almost never do,\u201d the governor added. \u201cSo we think that this is something that Floridians want protection from, and I think it\u2019ll end up being a really good first step. I mean, there\u2019s always been the question, what do you do about this, I think a lot of us have thought there was something wrong for a long time. But to just sit back and hope it gets better, that clearly wasn\u2019t going to work. So we\u2019re leading, and I think it\u2019ll be good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twitter is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, seeking to halt his state\u2019s investigation into the Big Tech company\u2019s move to ban President Donald Trump from its platform. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2310395,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/GettyImages-1027231380-e1610675046564.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Twitter Suing Texas AG Over Probe Into Trump Ban, Company Cites \u2018First Amendment Rights\u2019","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/GettyImages-1027231380-e1610675046564.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Twitter Suing Texas AG Over Probe Into Trump Ban, Company Cites \u2018First Amendment Rights\u2019","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2310395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}