A federal judge on Tuesday tossed out a defamation lawsuit against Twitter brought by the repairman source of social media-censored stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
John Paul Mac Isaac, owner of a computer repair shop that obtained a laptop owned by President-elect Joseph R. Biden’s son, sued Twitter in federal court for defaming him as an alleged hacker.
Judge Beth Bloom dismissed the lawsuit in the Florida federal court and noted that Mr. Mac Isaac is a Delaware resident and Twitter is a Delaware corporation with offices all around the world. Twitter’s headquarters are in San Francisco, California.
The laptop was dropped off at The Mac Shop in April 2019, according to Mr. Mac Isaac, who said he was asked to recover information from it. Material from the laptop’s alleged hard drive was then published by the New York Post, and Twitter restricted distribution of the story and temporarily suspended the New York Post’s account and other accounts sharing the news article.
Twitter cited its Hacked Materials Policy in explaining its crackdown on the New York Post’s story, which Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey later labeled a “mistake” at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month. But Mr. Mac Isaac’s lawsuit alleged the damage was already done.
“Plaintiff is not a hacker and the information obtained from the computer does not [contain] hacked materials because Plaintiff lawfully gained access to the computer, first with the permission of its owner, BIDEN, and then, after BIDEN failed to retrieve the hard drive despite Plaintiff’s requests, in accordance with the Mac Shop’s abandoned property policy,” read Mr. Mac Isaac’s lawsuit. “Plaintiff, as a direct result of Defendant’s actions and statements, is now widely considered a hacker and, on the same day Defendant categorized the Plaintiff as a hacker, Plaintiff began to receive negative reviews of his business as well as threats to his person and property.”
Mr. Mac Isaac’s lawsuit requested Twitter publicly retract statements he deemed false and pay him $500 million in damages.
Twitter declined to comment.
Twitter’s conservative critics are hoping Mr. Mac Isaac’s lawsuit shows how the legal protections it enjoys can tilt the playing field in favor of whatever political ideology the company prefers.
“This lawsuit should test the limits of how sweeping Twitter’s legal protections are,” Dan Gainor, Media Research Center vice president, said in a statement. “This wasn’t Twitter allowing outside opinion. Twitter clearly censored content apparently misrepresenting facts about another firm. Twitter and Facebook’s censorship of this story also helped fix a presidential election.”
Mr. Gainor added that he thought it was good to see Twitter facing pushback because he believes the company has “been getting away with it.”
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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