Twitter Asks 9th Circuit to Dismiss Trump’s First Amendment Claims
There’s “no dispute” that Twitter reinstated the accounts of former President Donald Trump and three of his First Amendment plaintiff-appellants, said Twitter’s 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reply brief Friday (docket 22-15961). Twitter also hasn’t placed “any warning or…
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disclaimer” on any of the plaintiffs’ tweets, so they “received the relief they sought,” rendering their First Amendment claims moot, it said. Attempting to avoid this “simple truth,” the plaintiffs “try to move the goalposts, ushering a new set of grievances,” it said. “But again, Twitter has not taken any content-moderation or de-amplification actions of any sort in regards to the reinstated accounts,” and the plaintiffs’ complaint “never sought relief for anything else,” it said. The plaintiffs haven’t offered “any evidence whatsoever that their novel allegations are the result of government coercion or collusion, the crux of their state-action theories,” it said. Because the accounts’ reinstatement “was due to a bona fide change in business strategy following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, any claim that Twitter will reverse course is purely speculative,” it said. Musk “swiftly and definitively reoriented Twitter’s strategic vision,” proving yet again that the reinstatement of the plaintiffs’ accounts “had nothing to do with this lawsuit,” it said. The 9th Circuit “should accordingly dismiss” the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims, it said.