Devin Nunes Claims The Right To An ‘Unimpaired Reputation’ Is A ‘Sacred Right’; Oh And Also Needs To Cough Up Info On How He Got Hired

Defamation

from the thin-skinned-public-figure-says-what? dept

Former Congressman, now Trump lackey TruthSocial CEO, Devin Nunes hasn’t had very much success with his long list of lawsuits against critics and the media. In just the past few months he’s lost multiple such cases. Of course, that hasn’t stopped him from soldiering on. One of the bigger cases he filed was against reporter Ryan Lizza and Hearst Media over an Esquire piece that Lizza published. While a district court dismissed the lawsuit easily, a year ago, the 8th Circuit brought it back with a bizarrely confused ruling about the single publication rule. I’m not going to revisit all the problems with that ruling, you can go to the link and read it if you want. However, it did at least revive the case, if only on an exceptionally narrow basis around a single tweet by Lizza, and whether or not that tweet (and not the underlying article) were done with actual malice under the law (i.e., with Lizza knowing it was untrue).

Since then, the case has continued to plod along with Nunes attempting to file a second amended complaint. Lizza and Hearst protested that the second amended complaint sought to revive a bunch of the claims that were already dismissed and to talk about stuff way beyond that one single tweet now at issue in the lawsuit. In response, back in June, the court allowed Nunes to file a second amended complaint, but a narrowly focused one:

Plaintiffs’ motion is GRANTED to allow Plaintiff’s Defamation by Implication and Common Law Conspiracy claims. Plaintiff’s motion is DENIED as to leave to amend to add False Light Invasion of Privacy claims. Plaintiff shall have until June 15, 2022 to file an Amended Complaint removing his False Light Invasion of Privacy Claim and eliminating the prolixity and irrelevant material from his remaining claims.

On June 11th, the amended complaint was filed, and as is all too typical of Devin Nunes lawsuits represented by lawyer Steven Biss, it’s chock full of all sorts of nonsense. I’d argue that it certainly did not eliminate “the prolixity and irrelevant material” when it includes stuff like this:

Lizza is a high-profile, left-wing political journalist, well-known for his extreme bias towards Plaintiff and his long history of publishing libelous statements about Plaintiff. In April 2017, while employed by the New Yorker magazine, Lizza wrote a series of articles that falsely accused Plaintiff of colluding with the “Trump Administration” to “manufacture a fake scandal” and buttress a baseless claim of wiretapping Trump Tower. Lizza falsely stated that Plaintiff had leaked classified information, engaged in a “series of lies”, misled the American public, and misrepresented the contents of intelligence files that Plaintiff had reviewed. Lizza informed the New Yorker’s readers that the “fake scandal created by Trump and Nunes is not over yet.”

Anyway, Lizza and Hearst’s lawyers also took issue with this and asked the court to strike various parts of the complaint as “immaterial and impertinent.”

Despite the mandate of the Order, Plaintiff filed his Second Amended Complaint without removing the stricken prolix and irrelevant material from his proposed second amended complaint, including the specific examples of irrelevant material that the Court identified in the Order. Plaintiff also still has not specified the basis of his defamation claim, which is now confined to a November 20, 2019 Twitter posting by Ryan Lizza, as he was ordered to do. When invited to correct the issues short of motion practice, Plaintiff refused

In response, in early July, Nunes filed a “resistance and opposition” to Lizza’s motion to strike, which again I might argue is somewhat full of prolixity and irrelevant material. Biss/Nunes insist that, for example, even as the court directly highlighted six extraneous and irrelevant tweets as examples of what not to include, it chose to include them anyway… because a conspiracy is afoot. Oddly, they only make this argument in a footnote, even though the entire point of this filing should be to explain why this content is relevant.

In addition to being “background information for the republication claim”, Plaintiff included the six tweets in the second amended complaint for two (2) reasons. First, the six tweets are evidence of prior publications, which under the Cowman case, are relevant to Plaintiff’s claim that Defendants acted with actual malice in republishing the article on November 20, 2019. Second, Plaintiff included the six tweets because they are relevant to Plaintiff’s conspiracy claim.

Then, Biss and Nunes decide to stand on their moral high horse and proclaim that there’s some fundamental right to having a good reputation, after announcing “the evidence of fraud and fabrication by Defendants is shocking” (though I’ll note that I can find no evidence of either fraud or fabrication in the amended complaint — at best they seem to suggest the possibility of sloppy reporting and/or opinionated writing, which is not anything like fraud or fabrication, and at worst, they mostly just suggest that Nunes wasn’t happy with the reporting and decided to sue over it).

But, this argument here, is just… special:

The right to an unimpaired reputation is among the most sacred rights recognized by the common law

Imagine claiming that “the right to an unimpaired reputation is among the most sacred rights” in the very same case where Nunes repeatedly trashes the reputation of Lizza. There’s also some pandering to the judge:

The law of defamation guards the reputations of public figures like Devin Nunes, just as it protects the reputations of every Judge on every Court

The magistrate judge on the case ruled late last month basically telling Nunes/Biss to knock it off, but still allowing a new amended complaint to be filed. Basically, the magistrate judge reminded Nunes and Biss that when the 8th Circuit revived the case, it did so on narrow grounds about a single tweet and whether it constituted actual malice under the law, and all the high falutin’ stuff about a conspiracy was utter nonsense.

Despite that concession, Plaintiff makes brief assertions in footnotes that the six tweets are not only “background information for the republication claim” but evidence of prior republications and that they are relevant to his conspiracy claim. (Doc. 100 at 2 n.1.) However, the Eighth Circuit was aware of the other tweets and made it clear that further proceedings on Plaintiff’s claims alleging defamation by implication, and the related claim alleging a common law conspiracy, are for the November 20, 2019 tweet which published the article. Nunes, 12 F.4th at 899. Although the tweets are not identical in the two complaints, no tweets more recent than November 20, 2019 are included in the Second Amended Complaint. Compare (Doc. 23 at 11-16) with (Doc. 90 at 10-15.)

Plaintiff provides no explanation to show how the tweets are now relevant although he cites Cowman v. LaVine, 234 N.W.2d 114, 121 (Iowa 1975) as support for both the relevance and admissibility of the tweets. (Doc. 100 at 3 n.2.) Plaintiff’s reliance on Cowman is misplaced. Cowman dealt with the admissibility of evidence that would otherwise be privileged to address a defendant’s wrongful motive. Cowman, 234 N.W.2d at 121. There, the Iowa Supreme Court explained that “defamatory publications similar to the one charged are generally admissible on the issue of actual malice, provided they are not privileged” so that actual malice may be inferred because republication may be “probative of the declarant’s state of mind.” Id. That approach to actual malice is not relevant here because the Iowa Supreme Court discarded it. “We discard the old common law wrongful motive standard and adopt . . . the New York Times ‘knowing or reckless disregard’ definition of ‘actual malice.’” Barreca v. Nickolas, 683 N.W.2d 111, 120 (Iowa 2004) (citing Price v. Viking Penguin, Inc., 881 F.2d 1426, 1433 (8th Cir.1989)) (“[A]ctual malice focuses upon the attitudes of defendants vis-à-vis the truth of their statements, as opposed to their attitudes towards plaintiffs.”). Despite this, Plaintiff attempts to inject his subjective beliefs about Defendants’ attitudes at every turn. Plaintiff has only alleged actual malice as to the November 20, 2019 tweet because Defendant Lizza was on notice when he made it. Despite knowing this, Plaintiff has failed to allege actual malice as to the other six tweets. Thus, Cowman is inapplicable. Regardless, the Eighth Circuit already considered similar tweets and found that Plaintiff only adequately alleged actual malice as to the November 20, 2019 tweet. These six tweets also have nothing to do with the issue of actual malice or the rest of Plaintiff’s claims and are irrelevant.

The end result is that Biss is told to try, try again. And without the conspiracy stuff or irrelevant arguments about the Mueller report (yes, really).

And so, Biss has now submitted yet another amended complaint, which is only slightly less bombastic. But, finally, it doesn’t have the excess tweets or the conspiracy claims.

Meanwhile, over in another venue entirely, this same case is causing other problems for Nunes. You see, Nunes keeps claiming that Lizza’s article — and now just the tweet, since that’s all that’s left of the case — has caused him real damage. So, Lizza and Hearst’s legal team have subpoenaed Truth Social’s parent corporation, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), Nunes’ employer, to seek evidence about the “damage” to Nunes’ reputation, and arguing that his hiring by Trump showed the opposite. TMTG has tried not to actually comply with the subpoena, so Lizza’s team had to go to court in Florida to try to enforce the subpoena.

Nunes’s hiring is inconsistent with his claimed reputational harm, a central issue in his Action. Petitioners therefore subpoenaed TMTG, seeking documents relating to its recruitment and hiring of Nunes. Petitioners anticipate that the subpoenaed documents will show that Nunes has not suffered reputational harm. They will instead show that Nunes, a recent recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, maintains a sterling reputation among people who matter most to him: Those willing to pay him a lot of money to do an important job, in the limelight, as part of a project that advances political objectives.

Although the relevance of the requested documents is obvious, TMTG responded to the Subpoena with evasive and improper objections and responses. It refused to remedy the defects in its responses or meaningfully meet and confer with Petitioners. It refused to produce a single document. Its objections should be overruled, and it should be ordered to produce all documents responsive to the requests at issue

TMTG sought to convince the court not to enforce the subpoena, but on Monday, that failed. The court has told Truth Social to cough up the necessary documents.

The ruling rejects TMTG’s arguments systematically — including rejecting TMTG’s claim that the case was filed in the wrong court (in Palm Beach), because TMTG is actually based in Sarasota, which is at the other end of the state. But, as the magistrate judge notes, TMTG only recently changed its official location to Sarasota, and at the time that the subpoena was served, it was still officially in Palm Beach (oops).

But, more importantly, the court says that TMTG’s substantive arguments for why the subpoena is too broad and burdensome… are nonsense. The judge did remove one of the unanswered requests, but orders TMTG to respond to five other document requests:

Here, the Court finds that request #2 does not seek documents that are relevant or proportionate to the claims or defenses in the underlying action pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1). Therefore, TMTG shall not be required to respond to request #2.

The Court does, however, find that requests #3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 do seek relevant and proportionate documents and also finds that TMTG and Nunes’ remaining objections to these requests are without merit and are overruled. Therefore, TMTG shall be required to respond to requests #3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 on or before August 22, 2022. TMTG shall produce all non-privileged, responsive documents by that date and also amend its written responses to the subpoena so that they clearly state what is being produced, whether any documents are being withheld, and, if so, why the documents are being withheld. Finally, as discussed at the discovery hearing, TMTG shall only be required to produce DWAC documents to the extent that they are in TMTG’s possession, custody, or control

So, yeah, that’s also probably not very good for Nunes’ big case back in Iowa, as Lizza and Hearst should soon have useful evidence debunking the idea that Nunes was actually harmed by Lizza’s tweet.

Filed Under: defamation, devin nunes, reputation, ryan lizza, steven biss
Companies: hearst

Devin Nunes Drops SLAPP Case He Lost Against Guy He Claims Is The Husband Of The Satirical Tweeting Cow Who Mocks Him

Legal Issues

from the what-a-track-record dept

Last month, we wrote about how Devin Nunes had lost yet another of his many, many SLAPP suits against various critics online for being mildly critical of the former congressman, who seems to have the thinnest skin imaginable. As you’ll recall, Nunes’ chronic SLAPP infatuation began a little over three years ago with a lawsuit against a satirical online cow who mocked him. While most people don’t realize it, that lawsuit is still going on (other defendants, namely Twitter and Liz Mair have gotten out of it), but technically the suit against the cow lives on, in part because Nunes and his lawyer, Steven Biss, have claimed they’re unable to identify the cow.

That was part of what made the lawsuit we discussed last month bizarrely interesting. It appeared, like so many of his lawsuits, to be a frivolous, censorial, attempt to intimidate critics into silence. This time it was against a guy named Benjamin Meredith, who also apparently sometimes made fun of Nunes online. Of course, given that the 1st Amendment protects speech, and Nunes’ various attempts at defamation claims haven’t done so well, this case was mostly styled as a “cyberstalking” case, but with little evidence supplied to back up the claims. However, as part of the case, Nunes made an extremely convoluted argument, relying on a lot of unsupported conjecture, that Meredith’s wife, was behind the @DevinCow account.

The judge was (quite reasonably) unimpressed by the whole thing and dismissed the lawsuit. However, the court left open the ability for Nunes to amend at least one claim, if he could present some actual evidence of stalking.

Last week, Nunes and Meredith submitted a joint filing, noting that the case had been settled.

Plaintiff, DEVIN NUNES, and Defendant, BEN PAUL MEREDITH, by and through their respective counsel, hereby stipulate and agree that this action, including the complaint, any prospective amended complaint, and all pending motions and matters, shall be dismissed with prejudice, with each party bearing his own costs and attorney’s fees.

This is, perhaps not that surprising. Meredith had incentive to settle because it fucking sucks to have to deal with a vexatious lawsuit, even if you’re in the right. And, even if most of the claims had been dismissed, getting the case over and done with is often preferable from a mental health standpoint than continuing to fight. Nunes had ample incentive to settle as well because, as we noted, this case was in a California court and subject to California’s relatively strong anti-SLAPP law, meaning that if he continued to lose in court (as seemed likely) there was a decently high likelihood that he would have ended up having to pay for all of Meredith’s accumulated legal fees in this case. And with Nunes’ little startup struggling to find users and stay relevant — not to mention potentially facing some legal scrutiny over its financing plans — perhaps he’d rather not be on the hook for Meredith’s legal bills.

Anyway, that’s yet another of Nunes’ SLAPP lawsuits down the drain. I still find it hilarious that he insists he’s a free speech warrior running a free speech website (that regularly bans users) when he’s one of the most notorious filers of SLAPP suits to try to silence people. Also, did anyone ever figure out who’s paying for his lawsuits?

Filed Under: anti-slapp, benjamin meredith, california, cyberstalking, devin nunes, devincow, steven biss

Paperwork Suggests Donald Trump Has Left The Board Of His ‘Tech’ Company; But Truth Social Says He’s Still There

Failures

from the the-art-of-the-deal? dept

It’s no secret that Donald Trump’s Trump Media and Technology Group — which was launched with big plans, but so far only has a total flop of a barely used social media app, Truth Social, to show for it — was struggling. But then came the news that the ponzi-scheme-esque reverse merger deal was actually leading to serious legal investigations, and it appears that Trump and some of his friends may have decided it was perhaps better to take a more “hands off” approach.

So, while Donald Trump himself had been on the board of TMTG, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune notes that Trump himself and a bunch of his entourage all left the board last month, just before subpoenas were delivered. Convenient, with the emphasis on that first syllable.

A total of six board members left. Other than Trump himself, Donald Trump Jr. and Kash Patel (a former Nunes staffer with close ties to Trump) left the board, along with Scott Glabe, Andrew Northwall and Wes Moss. Apparently there are just two board members left: Devin Nunes and Phillip Juhan, who is the company’s CFO. You can see on the filing that all six names are listed as being “removed” from the board:

But, as this story started making news, Truth Social (which is neither social, nor particularly truthful at times) claimed that Trump remains the chair of the board.

That… doesn’t actually clear things up. Perhaps there’s something else going on, or perhaps it’s a semantic change from listing him as just a director to chairperson? But, still, it’s not your usual filing.

Normally when a board member leaves, a replacement is named, or it comes soon after. It’s pretty rare to see so many board members all leave at once. Or, at least to file something saying they’re leaving, even if others deny it.

It makes you wonder if Trump will be shifting to a role like in some of his other businesses where he’s mostly just selling naming rights, but has little oversight over the actual business. Either way, it’s not exactly the kind of thing that provides confidence that those in charge know what they’re doing.

Filed Under: andrew northwall, devin nunes, donald trump, donald trump jr., kash patel, management, scott glabe, wes moss
Companies: tmtg, truth social

Trump’s ‘Free Speech’ Social Network, Truth Social, Is Banning People For Truthing The Truth About January 6 Hearings

Content Moderation

from the so-much-truth dept

In news that will surprise basically no one, Truth Social, Trump’s social network that was pitched as being about bringing free speech back and not doing any “viewpoint discrimination,” even as its terms of service promised it would be heavily moderated, is now banning users for trying to spread some “truths” about the January 6 hearings.

Tsk tsk. What has become of free speech?

I mean, this isn’t the first time people have noticed this. But it is worth calling out, especially as people keep insisting that sites like Twitter and YouTube should never moderate anything based on “viewpoint discrimination.”

So, will Texas AG Ken Paxton kick off an investigation into Truth Social’s moderation practices? Will Elon Musk insist that he needs to purchase Truth Social to bring free speech back? Will Trump supporters who insist that “big tech is censoring” their voices admit that little tech is now doing the reverse? Will Project Veritas catfish Truth Social employees and release misleading videos?

Will literally anyone who has been spewing nonsense about how any of this is about “free speech” admit that maybe they were wrong?

Or will everyone just go on culture warrioring, and pretending nothing at all happened?

Filed Under: content moderation, devin nunes, donald trump, free speech, january 6th
Companies: truth social

Devin Nunes Loses Yet Again In His Quixotic, Censorial SLAPP Cases

Defamation

from the and-another-one-down dept

For a while there in 2019, it seemed like a month couldn’t go by without (then) Rep. Devin Nunes suing some critic or another (including, somewhat infamously, a satirical cow). After kicking it off by suing mocking livestock, he quickly moved on to suing news organizations. A big one was suing CNN, a favored punching bag of Republicans, which he sued in December of 2019.

It hasn’t gone well.

Despite a Washington Post media critic (bizarrely) calling the lawsuit “halfway decent,” a judge quickly sent the case to its proper venue where it was (relatively) quickly dismissed. As we noted at the time, most of the decision to toss the case revolved around choice of law issues, regarding which state’s laws to apply. This case actually involved four possible sets of laws: Virginia, Washington DC, New York and California. Frankly, I think the case would be a loser under all four sets of laws, but exactly how does depend on which laws are being used. Nunes desperately wanted to make sure California’s (ostensibly his “home” state) laws did not apply, in part because California law requires that you first ask the news org to retract the speech you claim is defamatory (which it appears Nunes did not do).

After some back and forth, the court determined that California’s laws should apply — in part because of where the case was filed (in Virginia) even though the case was transferred to NY (choice of law fights are fascinating to me and like three other people, so I’m not going to go deep into the weeds as to how this worked, but trust me, it does), and the lack of request for a retraction basically destroyed the rest of the case. Again, it’s likely that the case would eventually be a loser under any of those sets of laws, but failing to meet the very basic criteria under California’s law dooms the case here.

Still, Nunes and his lawyer, Steven Biss, decided to appeal the ruling.

It did not go well.

The 2nd Circuit appeals court has affirmed the lower court decision, saying that Virginia’s choice of law principles (where the case was first filed) mean that California’s defamation law applies.

Applying the principles set forth above, as well as those animating the Virginia Supreme Court’s adherence to lex loci delicti, we hold that the district court correctly determined that under the circumstances presented in this case, the Virginia Supreme Court would apply the substantive law of the state where the plaintiff incurred the greatest reputational injury, with a presumption that absent countervailing circumstances, a plaintiff suffers the most harm
in his state of domicile.

We reject Nunes’s contention that, in the context of simultaneous multi-state defamation cases, Virginia’s choice-of-law principles require application of “the law of the state where the publication first occurred,” understood by Nunes as the state from which the statement emanated. Appellant’s Br. at 29. Under Virginia law, a statement is not considered to be published until it is seen or heard by a third party. See Food Lion, Inc. v. Melton, 250 Va. 144, 150–51 (1995) (holding that publication requires a third party to have heard the words spoken); Meadows v. Northrop Grumman Innovation Sys., Inc., 436 F. Supp. 3d 879, 886 (W.D. Va. 2020) (collecting cases for the proposition that, in the context of purportedly defamatory emails, the place of publication is where the email was “opened and read”); Katz v. Odin, Feldman & Pittleman, P.C., 332 F. Supp. 2d 909, 915 (E.D. Va. 2004) (“[P]ublication of a defamatory statement requires that it be communicated to a third party ‘so as to be heard and understood by such person.’” (quoting Thalhimer Bros. v. Shaw, 156 Va. 863, 871 (1931))). Further, under the Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws, which sets forth the traditional lex loci delicti doctrine, the “place of the wrong” for purposes of a defamation claim is where the content was received and harm to the plaintiff’s reputation occurs.…

It goes on like this for a while before saying that it’s pretty clear that California’s — again, where Nunes was a Congressional Representative from, and where you’d think any “reputational harm” would be greatest — was the proper set of laws.

Then, it notes that, as the lower court said, Nunes’ failure to demand a retraction means he has failed to properly state a claim for defamation.

Accordingly, the district court did not err in concluding that California Civil Code § 48a governs, that Nunes failed to comply with that statute because he did not make a timely demand for a correction from CNN, and that the complaint should therefore be dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim. Dismissal is required because, as the district court correctly found, the complaint does not allege special damages with the necessary specificity under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(g), and instead merely alleges “special damages” by including those words conclusorily in the general allegations of damages. 7 Lastly, because, under California law, conspiracy “[s]tanding alone . . . does no harm and engenders no tort liability,” Applied Equip. Corp. v. Litton Saudi Arabia Ltd., 869 P.2d 454, 457 (Cal. 1994), the district court also correctly dismissed Nunes’s civil conspiracy claim with prejudice.

And so another Biss/Nunes joint bites the dust. I wonder if whoever is paying Biss for all these lawsuits (whether its Nunes or some mysteriously unidentified third party) is happy about all these losses that keep piling up?

Filed Under: california, choice of law, defamation, devin nunes, new york, steven biss, virginia, washington dc
Companies: cnn

Trump Isn’t Concerned About Free Speech, Just A Free Audience

Failures

from the neither-true-not-social dept

I have to admit that it’s been somewhat amusing watching Truth Social flop. After months of rumors (and a variety of competitors targeting the Trumpworld), Trump announced plans for his own Twitter clone, Truth Social, in October of last year, using a sketchy financial instrument to fund it. He found a perfect dupe in Congressman Devin Nunes to run the operation, whose only relevant experience seems to be suing Twitter accounts that mocked him. The promise of a “free speech” supporting, Trumpist world, social media dissolved into obvious parody as Nunes promised the site would be heavily moderated with a ridiculous set of rules. There were already reports that the site was having difficulty attracting users, perhaps because Trumpist “influencers” were whining that it’s no fun if they’re not upsetting the right people.

And now, more reports are coming out about just how much of a flop Truth Social is so far. An analysis of traffic to the site shows that it’s in free fall.

The former president’s social media network for MAGA disciples has sunk to about 60,000 new users a week.

“This is down 93% from its launch week, when it saw 872,000 installs during the week of Feb. 21,” Stephanie Chan of the analytics site Sensor Tower told The Wrap. “We estimate that Truth Social has so far reached approximately 1.2 million installs since its launch.”

Truthsocial.com reportedly has fallen to 1.9 million weekly visits from a high of 6 million in the debut week for the Twitter-like platform, according to Similarweb stats cited by the news website.

As we’ve noted before, the problem for the people who complain about being moderated off of Twitter is not actually about free speech at all. Indeed, Twitter’s policies actually do plenty to enable strong free speech principles. The real issue is that Trump and his friends didn’t want a platform for “free speech,” they wanted a “free audience” to rile up.

And no matter what you think of the 1st Amendment or “free speech principles,” they don’t automatically grant you the power to force people to listen.

Filed Under: devin nunes, donald trump, free speech, social media
Companies: truth social

With Truth Social Having Trouble Attracting Users, Will Trump/Nunes Realize That There’s More To Managing A Social Media Site Than Grievances?

Culture

from the that-would-require-the-ability-to-be-introspective dept

It appears that Donald Trump’s social network, at least in its initial form, is following the pattern of many of Donald Trump’s other business ventures: lots of hype, but little in the way of an actual business. As Politico has detailed, even the MAGA world isn’t exactly rushing to make Truth Social the Trumpist paradise he seemed to expect.

Approximately 313,000 people follow Trump on Truth Social — just a fraction of the more than 85 million who once followed him on Twitter. That could be due, in part, to a waitlist to get onto the site that is still hundreds of thousands of people long. But many major players in the conservative world also aren’t on the app. There are no verified accounts for Trump’s former advisers Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani, although unverified accounts exist, based on a search Tuesday. While top conservative talk show host Dan Bongino has an account, Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson did not appear in the search.

Apparently the lackluster launch has made the big guy sad.

In recent weeks, sources have heard the former president on the phone swearing gratuitously and asking things like, “What the fuck is going on” with Truth Social.

He’s repeatedly groused about the negative press and the less-than-stellar optics of the rollout, these sources said. And he’s demanded to know why more people aren’t using it—why the app isn’t swiftly dominating the competition.

And it appears that Trump’s handpicked CEO, Devin Nunes, who literally quit Congress to take this job after whining about “censorship” on social media (while simultaneously suing people who made fun of him on social media), is having a bit of a rough go in his new job.

Now, obviously (as Nunes himself has emphasized), it’s still very much the early days of the platform, and things could get better. But the most bizarre thing to me is how many people seem to assume that building a successful social media site is somehow easy. Yet, now we’ve seen Gab, Parler, GETTR, and Truth Social (not to mention a number of other also rans and wannabes) all try to jump into the space pretending that they would magically recreate Twitter, but without the “censorship.”

Of course, that was always ridiculous, because every website needs to moderate, or it becomes a cesspool of spam and harassment. And each of these platforms learns pretty quickly the need for some level of moderation. Truth Social didn’t even start out pretending otherwise (even as its marketing pretended the site was somehow more supportive of “free speech” its terms of service made it clear that there will be aggressive moderation — something that has been shown to be true).

Part of the oddity in all of this is that Trump himself isn’t even really using Truth Social yet, apparently happier with the attention that his tweet-like press releases have been getting him (and I won’t even get into the interestingly timed announcement, just a couple weeks before the launch of Truth Social, that Melania Trump would make Parler her main social media site.)

All of that is to say that some of us have been pointing out for years that there’s a lot more to building a successful internet company than the idea or publicity. Execution matters, and mere grievances are not execution. And, sometimes, part of that execution is figuring out how to make your site into the kind of place people actually want to visit. And, sometimes, that means banning trolls, assholes, and hate mongers… rather than pretending that’s what makes a site useful.

So much of what the Twitters, Facebooks, and YouTubes of the world spent over a decade learning was how to create ecosystems that people want to use. The anger-fueled replacement efforts seemed to think that it was all easy, and that doing the slightest bit of community management went against the ethos of social media. So far, the reality is looking like the opposite is true. To make social media work, you have to make it social and welcoming. That’s not something that Donald Trump has much experience in doing.

Filed Under: content moderation, devin nunes, donald trump, social media
Companies: truth social

As Expected, Trump's Social Network Is Rapidly Banning Users It Doesn't Like, Without Telling Them Why

Content Moderation

from the you-don't-say dept

Earlier this week we took a look at Donald Trump and Devin Nunes’ Truth Social’s terms of service, noting that they — despite claiming that Section 230 should be “repealed” — had explicitly copied Section 230 into their terms of service. In the comments, one of our more reliably silly commenters, who inevitably insists that no website should ever moderate, and that “conservatives” are regularly removed for their political views on the major social networks (and refusing to provide any evidence to support his claims, because he cannot), insisted that Truth Social wouldn’t ban people for political speech, only for “obscenity.”

So, about that. As Mashable has detailed, multiple people are describing how they’ve been banned from Truth Social within just the first few days — and not for obscenity. The funniest one is someone — not the person who runs the @DevinCow account on Twitter — tried to sign up for a @DevinCow account on Truth Social. As you probably know, Devin Nunes, as a congressman, sued the satirical cow account for being mean to him (the case is still, technically, ongoing). You may recall that the headline of my article about Devin Nunes quitting Congress to run Truth Social announced that he was leaving Congress to spend more time banning satirical cows from Truth Social.

And apparently that was accurate. Matt Ortega first tried to register the same @DevinCow on Truth Social, only to be told that the username was not even allowed (which suggests that Nunes or someone else there had already pre-banned the Cow). Ortega then tried other varieties of the name, getting through with @DevinNunesCow… briefly. Then it, too, was banned:

Note that the ban email does not identify what rules were broken by the account (another point that Trumpists often point to in complaining about other websites’ content moderation practices: that they don’t provide a detailed accounting).

So, it certainly appears that it’s not just “obscenity” that Nunes and Trump are banning. They seem to be banning accounts that might, possibly, make fun of them and their microscopically thin skins.

The Mashable article also notes that Truth Social has also banned a right wing anti-vaxxer, who you might expect to be more welcome on the site, but no such luck:

And here’s the thing: this is normal and to be expected, and I’m glad that Truth Social is doing the standard forms of content moderation that every website needs to do to be able to operate a functional service. It would just be nice if Nunes/Trump and their whiny sycophants stopped pretending that this website is somehow more about “free speech” than other social media sites. It’s not. Indeed, so far, they seem more willing to quickly ban people simply because they don’t like them, than for any more principled reason or policy.

Filed Under: account bans, content moderation, devin nunes, devin's cow, donald trump