Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Wednesday (March 10) that he looks forward to a legal battle with Twitter in Texas, rather than in federal court in San Francisco, California, which is Twitter’s preferred location, over a lawsuit filed against him by social media outlet Twitter.
Twitter filed a lawsuit Monday (March 8) against Ken Paxton, alleging the Republican used public power to retaliate against Twitter for banning former President Donald Trump (R-Texas) from its platform.
According to federal lawsuit documents filed by Twitter, the company alleges that a civil investigation launched by Paxton requires Twitter to disclose information about its censorship policies, a move that would involve revealing confidential company information.
Twitter alleges that the Texas attorney general’s investigation violates the company’s First Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution and calls on the judge to halt the probe.
The investigation began on Jan. 13 of this year, when Paxton sent letters to technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon Web Services and Apple requesting their policies and information about content censorship. As of March 10, only Twitter had raised fierce objections to the investigation.
Paxton said Wednesday that he believes the legal dispute will be resolved in Texas.
“This case doesn’t make any sense in California because it’s a Texas issue, so our goal is to get it back to Texas and continue to ask the right questions,” he told The Washington Times on a conference call.
“And my assumption about them doing that is because they don’t want to answer our questions. There are some things they don’t want to make public, and unfortunately, that’s where we are.”
Outsiders believe Paxton’s legal challenge with Twitter will be part of the Republican attorney general’s offensive against Big Tech’s censorship of conservative users.
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