On Wednesday, the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) announced that it is taking legal action against Twitter for what it sees as discriminatory and defamatory action against conservatives.
The social media site suspended the group’s account, @ALIPAC, for seven days over Christmas 2017 following their proclamation of victory over DACA Amnesty on December 21, while falsely alleging that comments made many weeks earlier opposing violence by illegal immigrants and Muslim refugees were violent threats and violations of Twitter’s rules.
The censored content can be seen here.
In response, ALIPAC said it is preparing a civil rights complaint with the United States Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division due to what the organization says is Twitter’s unfair trade practices, which are targeting American groups and individuals with defamation and censorship based on their conservative creeds and opposition to DACA Amnesty. ALIPAC is also encouraging activists to join their new account at the Twitter alternative called GAB.ai where censorship is not an issue.
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ALIPAC asserts that the social media giant is using the global corporation’s vast power and ability to censor individuals and organizations to both abridge the protected First Amendment rights of Americans and impact the outcome of legislation and elections through a pattern of defamation and discrimination.
According to ALIPAC’s press release:
The Civil Rights of U.S. citizens include our fundamental freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, and subsequent acts of Congress. ALIPAC’s formal complaint is part of a larger growing number of reports warning of a pattern of discrimination and abuse being perpetrated by global corporations like Twitter, Google, and Facebook.
Twitter is engaging in acts of discrimination against Americans like William Gheen acting as President of ALIPAC by blocking ads paid for by Americans for Legal Immigration PAC that oppose DACA Amnesty for illegal immigrants while allowing ads from pro-Amnesty organizations to reach large American audiences. (See Censored and Allowed Ads)
Twitter is also refusing to verify the account @ALIPAC and has rejected more than five applications for verification since 2016 although the account with more than twenty-four thousand followers meets all stated requirements on Twitter for the blue verification badge, This special treatment is provided to and benefits ALIPAC’s pro-Amnesty opponents.
Most recently, Twitter unfairly suspended @ALIPAC for seven days after the organization proclaimed victory over DACA “Amnesty 2017.” ALIPAC’s suspension from Twitter following the defeat of DACA legislation in DC and the blocked ads were considered by Twitter to be “hateful content” although simple inspection of the ads and posts show they do not violate the stated rules on Twitter. (View Censored Tweets)
ALIPAC appealed the seven day suspension on each post and was denied upon appeal by Twitter claiming, “We do not allow people to promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease.” ALIPAC’s ads and posts do not threaten or promote violence. Nor do they target anyone based on these criteria. (View Documentation)
“Twitter’s claims that I threatened or promoted violence against protected classes in these comments and ads are observably false and defamatory as anyone can see from the images we provide of the censored materials,” said William Gheen, President of ALIPAC. “Twitter is discriminating against me and ALIPAC because of our creed which is our commonly shared beliefs that the U.S. Constitution and immigration laws matter and that Amnesty for illegal aliens is destructive to America. American citizens cannot effectively compete against mega-corporations like Twitter when such companies attack the civil rights of our citizens, and we are denied equal services, treatment, and employment based on our creed. In America we do not allow Walmart to tell Democrats, they can’t buy electrical or plumbing products nor the power and phone companies to deny equal services and products to any non-violent candidate, campaign, political party or cause they oppose!”
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is a 527 corporation which is the same as a federal campaign for U.S. House or Senate and as such is considered a form of non-profit which enjoys the highest classification of free speech protections under US law.
ALIPAC added:
William Gheen is required to use Twitter, Facebook, and Google products as part of his employment duties reaching out to national audiences, and has little hope of accomplishing the clearly stated non-violent goals of his job and organization without equal access to these company services.
According to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, companies like Twitter are supposed to be prohibited from discrimination based on creed, race, religion, sex, national origin, or disability, in hiring, promoting, firing, setting wages, testing, training, apprenticeship, and all other terms and conditions of employment. In 2018, many potential and current employees, groups, and businesses must be allowed equal access to communication company services to compete in the political, financial, and information marketplaces Twitter is attempting to dominate.
Pamela Geller said that she likes ALIPAC’s approach:Â “Throw everything at them including the kitchen sink.”
The news comes after we and others reported that Twitter suspended the account of Bosch Fawstin, the artist who won Geller’s “Draw Mohammad” contest in Garland, Texas.
Geller further wrote:
The ensuing outcry moved Twitter to reinstate his account but that is hardly the answer. What about counter jihad activists and conservatives without a huge social media voice or influential social media friends. Milo , on the other hand, is still banned from Twitter.
Meanwhile, Twitter apparently has no problem with leftists advocating or threatening the murder of conservatives. There’s hardly a day that goes by without someone on the social media site advocating the assassination of the president. Sadly, Twitter seems to turn a blind eye to these threats.
Worse yet, the site began what was characterized by many as a “purge” of those whose opinions fall to the right of center — oddly enough, on December 18, which happens to be Josef Stalin’s birthday. And to make things more interesting, Twitter announced that it would monitor the off-site behavior of users and sanction those the company feels engages in “inappropriate activity.”
As Geller correctly observed, social media giants like Twitter routinely “shadow-ban” or bury conservative content in an obvious effort to silence dissenting points of view.
Lawsuits against companies like Facebook and Twitter are extremely difficult, if not impossible to win, in part because federal law currently sanctions social media censorship, as we explained here.
So perhaps ALIPAC is onto something. If lawsuits won’t work, perhaps civil rights litigation will. Rest assured that if ALIPAC is successful, the floodgates could open. Imagine the impact of a million such complaints filed against Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Perhaps it’s time to stock up on popcorn…
Related:
- Twitter bans ex-Muslim cartoonist Bosch Fawstin, still lets liberals advocate, threaten murder
- Twitter purge of far-right accounts begins on Stalin’s birthday, liberals still allowed to call for Trump’s murder
- New initiative exposes censorship of Christians, conservatives by Facebook, Twitter
- PragerU sues Google, YouTube over alleged censorship of conservative videos
- Welcome to 1984: Twitter to monitor, sanction users for offline behavior
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