Twitter sues Texas attorney general and says he launched probe in retaliation for taking down Trump’s account

Twitter has filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump, from “unlawfully abusing his authority” with his new investigations against major tech companies. 

The state’s attorney general, who filed failed lawsuits that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, has launched probes into companies like Twitter after Mr Trump was banned from most social media sites following the Capitol insurrection, and was specifically demanding internal documents about the platform’s process for removing accounts. 

In a complaint filed at a California federal court on Monday, the company wrote: “Twitter seeks to stop AG Paxton from unlawfully abusing his authority as the highest law-enforcement officer of the State of Texas to intimidate, harass, and target Twitter in retaliation for Twitter’s exercise of its First Amendment rights.”

Twitter noted in its lawsuit how the Texas attorney general had issued civil investigative demands to five tech firms requesting information about internal communications surrounding content and account moderation. 

Mr Paxton has condemned social media companies for removing the former president after he continued to promote outright falsities of rampant voter fraud as his extremist supporters attacked police and stormed the Capitol building on January 6 in a deadly mob that left at least five people dead. 

But Twitter has maintained that it reserves the right to moderate content and accounts on its website, while declining to provide “volumes of highly confidential documents” to the attorney general. 

The company said it had attempted to work with Mr Paxton’s office to send a limited scope of the documents it had requested, but said the attorney general “made clear that he will use the full weight of his office, including his expansive investigatory powers, to retaliate against Twitter for having made editorial decisions with which he disagrees.”

Mr Paxton announced he was launching the investigations against Twitter and other outlets just days after Mr Trump was removed from most platforms, with tech executives citing his consistent promotion of lies and falsities surrounding his electoral defeat, as well as additional threats of violence against lawmakers and the Capitol. 

“First Amendment rights and transparency must be maintained for a free online community to operate and thrive,” the attorney general said in his statement. “However, the 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.”

Mr Paxton, who currently faces reported allegations of corruption and bribery, attended the rally Mr Trump held in Washington before the Capitol riots, and has long supported false claims of widespread voter fraud in the recent national elections. There has been no evidence to support any of Mr Paxton’s claims, which were tossed out by the courts. Mr Trump’s own federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, described the 2020 election as the “most secure” in American history. 

Twitter argued that being forced to turn over sensitive documents to Mr Paxton may “compromise Twitter’s ability to effectively and efficiently moderate content on its platform.”