Twitter will have to turn over emails, texts, voicemails, and other communications pertaining to the permanent blacklisting of former New York Times science writer and skeptic of official coronavirus policies Alex Berenson from the platform, in a legal blow to the leftist-run platform.
The ruling was issued by William Allsup, U.S. judge for the Northern District of California, late last week. Twitter must turn over the material by June 20.
According to the ruling, Twitter must “Produce all texts, emails, voicemails, statements, and other documents” pertaining to Berenson, “Including but not limited to nonparty complaints or inquiries about plaintiff and / or including possible or actual termination of his account or a strike against his account or a labeling of any of his posts.”
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Earlier in the week, Judge Allsup also mused that Twitter’s new ownership under Elon Musk might render the case moot.
Via Politico:
“Your company has been taken over by a new owner, and your new owner may disagree with your position,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup told Twitter’s lawyers on Thursday. “And I don’t want to have to spin my wheels and do a lot of work for nothing. So when is your new owner going to decide whether to continue with this lawsuit?”
James Lawrence, of Envisage Law, formerly an official at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration under President Donald Trump, who is representing Berenson, welcomed the judge’s decision.
“The Court order opens the door to allow Alex Berenson to hold Twitter to its own policies and statements, and to obtain discovery related to the company’s decision to boot him from the platform,” said Lawrence.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to represent Alex, and to move the case forward.”
Berenson filed his lawsuit against Twitter in December last year, following his permanent ban from the platform for pointing out that coronavirus vaccines did not fully prevent transmission of, or infection from, the Wuhan virus.
Via Breitbart News:
Prior to his ban, Berenson had tweeted about vaccines’ failure to stop the infection and transmission of the virus, a tweet that Twitter labeled “misleading.”
“It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission,” tweeted Berenson. “Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it — at best — as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS.”
“And we want to mandate it? Insanity.”
The lawsuit states that Berenson’s claims about the vaccine were factually accurate. According to the complaint, “it is undisputed that vaccinated persons can contract and spread COVID-19.”
Berenson’s lawyers have also argued that Twitter collaborated with the U.S. government to censor Berenson, by submitting to the White House’s demands to censor so-called misinformation, citing “The extraordinarily close nexus between the July 2021 statements by senior executive branch officials—including President Biden himself—calling for censorship by such companies and Twitter’s corresponding immediate actions against Mr. Berenson.”
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.
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