California Representative Devin Nunes , one of the president ’s biggest yes - human beings in Congress and recent filer of alawsuit against Twitterand several of its users , including the account @DevinCow and Republican strategian Liz Mair , over mean things say about him has launchedyet another causa . This one again aim Mair , as well as the McClatchy Company , which publishes legion newspapers . Also again , Nunes ’ legal team appear to have exposed their on-going ineptitude when it amount to Twitter .
grant to Fox News , Nunes is incriminate McClatchy reporter MacKenzie Mays and Mair in Virginia province court of justice of conspire to scatter online and offline smears , including that he “ was involved with cocaine and underage prostitutes . ” Nunes wants $ 150 million as payback .
At issue is a2018 Fresno Bee articledetailing a cause by a female former employee of the Napa Valley - establish Alpha Omega Winery , in which Nunes is an investor and special partner . The employee say that while work on for the wine maker during a 2015 charity sail , she witnessed attendees using cocain and procuring the services of sexuality proletarian ( some of whom allegedly appeared nonaged ) . In the causa , Nunes ’ legal squad allege that Mays had “ abandoned the role of diarist , and opt to leverage their considerable power to spread falsehoods and to defame ” him — such as by including photo and video of Nunes in the article , when the wine maker had denied Nunes was even tangentially involved with the Jacob’s ladder sail or the management of the winery . It also accuse McClatchy publications of quoting Mair in article without disclosing “ she was being paid ‘ by clients ’ to smear Nunes . ”
Representative Devin Nunes.Photo: J. Scott Applewhite (AP)
unluckily for Nunes , theversion of the lawsuitlinked to by Fox News also appears to contain a cringeworthy mistake of a key Twitter feature of speech : the search role .
As spot on Twitter , Nunes ’ direction included a screenshot of a May 2018 tweet from Mays in which the Holy Writ “ fair sex , ” “ Devin , ” and “ cocaine ” come out in sheer , which the lawsuit claim is evidence Mays “ chose to underscore ” those words in her tweet . Twitter , of course , does not have aboriginal bread and butter for bold text ( though it is potential to mimic thisusing unicode textthat looks bolded ) . rather , it seem as though Nunes ’ lawyers search for the words “ woman , ” “ Devin , ” and “ cocaine , ” which were then automatically highlighted in search issue .
OMG — did Nunes ’ counsel do a Twitter keyword hunt for this reporter ’s tweet and then incriminate her of bolding the words on Twitter?!https://t.co / qNAJL2Hk8Rpic.twitter.com / a2qq0aS3UV
lmaoScreenshot: (Twitter)
— Matt Pearce 🦅 🇺 🇸 ( @mattdpearce)April 9 , 2019
A quick scan show that the original tweet by Mays does not , in fact , have any text in bold face .
A woman who work for the winery ( listed as a primary asset of Devin Nunes ' ) action after she said she was stranded on a yacht with its top investors who were using cocaine and underage sex workers . The cruise was auctioned off as part of a charity event.https://t.co/EQUgBXbgGM
— Mackenzie Mays ( @MackenzieMays)May 23 , 2018
However , if onesearches for “ char Devin cocaine”on Twitter , the tweet does show up displaying the bold text seen in Nunes ’ courting .
Whoops !
One might also take note that searching “ woman Devin cocain ” is a rather roundabout mode to trap down a specific reporter ’s tweets that included the words woman , Devin , and cocaine . But searching “ womanhood Devin cocain ” would , on the other mitt , be a very commodious direction to assure those words appeared to be highlighted in such a screenshot .
This is far from the first time Republican political human body have misunderstood or mischaracterized the way Twitter works . trump out infamously and baselesslyaccusedthe internet site of “ ‘ SHADOW BANNING ’ prominent conservative ” last yr after hundreds of yard of account were obliterate from hunt auto - suggestion . ( These claims made an coming into court in Nunes’prior lawsuit naming Twitter . )
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani , who was once opine to be some kind ofcybersecurity expertfor the administration , mistakenlyinserted an unregistered URLinto one of his tweets late last year , then accused Twitter of set aside hackers to “ obtrude upon my schoolbook with a disgusting anti - President message ” when someone record the URL and gear up up a internet site calling Trump a “ traitor . ” More generally , many spectacular conservatives haveyelled blooming murderwhenever some veracious - wing figure or another finally blundered into a Twitter ban .
Nunes ’ sound squad will presumptively judge to drag in this little error under the carpet , but he would appear to be on precarious standing regardless . Even the usually Republican - friendly Fox News notice in its coverage that “ Virginia , like many other Department of State , include robust protections for journalists and other actors accused of slander in what is forebode an ‘ anti - SLAPP statute . ’ SLAPP stands for ‘ Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation . ’ ”
Devin NunesSocial mediaTechnologyX ( Twitter )
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