Saturday, June 13, 2020

In Nunes Vs. Cow, Cow Winning


Trump lapdog and peddler of Russian disinformation Rep. Devin "Numbnuts" Nunes has been fighting a long legal battle to unmask the identity of  Twitter accounts in the persons of a cow and his mother that parody him. "Devin Nunes' Cow" now has some 700,000 followers, compared to only 1,000 when Nunes launched his legal battle. Yesterday, Nunes' home paper the Fresno Bee reported that his quest to discover his Twitter tormentor(s) may be over:
"The attorney for Rep. Devin Nunes said on Friday that he is at a 'dead end' in attempting to identify anonymous people who criticize the California Republican on Twitter as he asked a Virginia judge to hold the company responsible for social media criticism.

 Nunes, R-Tulare, filed a lawsuit against Twitter last year alleging he was defamed on Twitter by Republican political strategist Liz Mair and the writers behind anonymous social media accounts that call themselves “Devin Nunes’ Cow” and “Devin Nunes’ Mom.”

 Nunes’ attorney and lawyers for Twitter were in court on the social media company’s motion to dismiss the case. The San Francisco-based company argues it is protected from lawsuits like Nunes’ under a federal law that says social media companies like Twitter are not liable for what people post on their platforms if they don’t have a hand in creating the content." (our emphasis)
It appears that the judge in the case is cool toward Nunes' suit against Twitter, citing their legal protection from defamation suits prompted by others' content on their platform. Hopefully he'll dismiss Nunes' suit and soon.

In raising the profile of his anonymous tormentors -- a fictional cow, no less -- Nunes has reaped the ridicule he richly deserves, including this from his Dem opponent in November:

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