District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco let his breach of contract claim proceed.īerenson "plausibly avers that Twitter’s conduct here modified its contract with plaintiff and then breached that contract,” Alsup wrote. They were inspired in part, they said, by former New York Times reporter and vaccine skeptic Alex Berenson, who was banned from Twitter in 2021 for violating the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy.īerenson sued, and while his speech-based claims were dismissed, U.S. But the Becks side-stepped it by alleging breach of contract alone. Whether the constitutional argument will carry the day remains to be seen. “New evidence is coming in like a firehose,” lead counsel John Coale told me, pointing to the so-called Twitter Files released by Musk that detail some of the company's internal content moderation decisions. Rather, they say government officials “by means of thinly veiled threats and inducement” enlisted the social media company to act on their behalf in censoring disfavored content, in violation of the 1st Amendment. Trump and the other plaintiffs argue Twitter when it suppressed their speech was not acting as a private company. Circuit Court of Appeals featuring Trump as lead plaintiff is still trying for standing. That’s left scant toehold for banned users, though a would-be class action now before the 9th U.S. Twitter underscores this in its terms of service, which states that it can suspend user accounts for “any or no reason.” The 1996 law shields internet platforms from liability for restricting access to material they consider to be “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” In the past, when banned users resorted to litigation against Twitter, their suits typically died on the same hill: Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act. Twitter counsel Joshua Webb of Hill Ward Henderson in Tampa did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Twitter, which last month announced a new internal appeals process for permanently suspended account holders to seek reinstatement.
They’re seeking injunctive relief and damages in excess of $100,000. The Becks argue that because they never broke the law with their tweets or egregiously spammed, Twitter has materially breached its contract with them by failing to reinstate their accounts. 24 tweet, that changed the terms of the user agreement. In their lawsuit against Twitter, they claim that when the new CEO announced the amnesty in a Nov. That changed when Musk purchased the company in October. “We said ‘OK, whatever, we’ll go on with our lives,’” Beck said. With a combined 30,000-plus Twitter followers, the couple said being booted from the platform was a blow since they'd used it as an advocacy tool in their DNC fraud case. The office of the former president did not respond to a request for comment.) Elizabeth Beck previously drew attention for claiming Donald Trump called her “disgusting” when she asked to take a break to pump breast milk during a 2011 deposition – allegations that the DNC featured in a video. “Elizabeth and I became thorns in the side of the Democratic Party,” Beck said. In addition to the anti-Harris tweets (which dwelt on her romantic relationship in the mid-1990s with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown), the Becks also unsuccessfully sued the Democratic National Committee for fraud in 2016 on behalf of Sanders supporters. In their complaint, which was removed by Twitter from Miami-Dade County Court to federal court in the Southern District of Florida last week, the Becks assert that they were suspended for "engaging in political speech antagonistic to the establishment Democratic Party interests." But they also see a slim opening to make their case stick where others have failed.
Now, the Becks, who met in 2003 as Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan summer associates and formed their own civil litigation firm in 2007, are trying a novel tack: They’re suing Twitter for breach of contract.Ī stretch? Probably. (Reuters) - When Florida lawyer and Bernie Sanders supporter Jared Beck was permanently suspended by Twitter Inc four years ago after tweeting derisive comments about then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, the ban “didn’t terribly surprise me," he said.īeck told me what he finds more shocking is that neither he nor his wife and law partner Elizabeth Lee Beck, who was also banned, have been able to get reinstated - even though new Twitter owner Elon Musk promised “general amnesty” to suspended account holders, provided they hadn’t broken the law or engaged in “egregious spam.”
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