Twitter sues US government in bid to head-off order to unmask owner of anti-Trump profile
Twitter has taken the unusual step of filing a federal lawsuit against the US government in an escalating battle of wills with authorities demanding that it hand over the identities of individuals behind an account which has been critical of US president Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
The @ALT_uscis account is alleged to be the work of at least one government immigration employee and uses an acronym belonging to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services together with the tagline ‘immigration resistance’.
In its lawsuit the micro-blogging platform re-asserted its commitment to freedom of speech, saying: “The rights of free speech afforded Twitter's users and Twitter itself under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech.”
Twitter revealed that it had been summoned to hand over details pertaining to the account last month but the US government has thus far refused to comment publicly on the case.
Twitter has become well-known as the go-to social media platform of choice for the US president, going so far as to declare that 'Trump tweets are good for business'.