Lawsuit Alleges CAIR Pressured Twitter to Censor Laura Loomer

Laura Loomer protests Twitter
Laura Loomer

Lawyers representing Laura Loomer, a candidate for the Republican congressional primary in Florida’s 21st district have filed an appeal against a dismissal of a case against the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which alleges the Muslim advocacy organization’s pressure campaign caused the candidate’s permanent ban from Twitter.

The appeal, filed to the U.S. court of appeals for the 11th circuit, alleges that CAIR’s activism against Loomer deliberately caused financial damage to the latter, and was celebrated by CAIR.

Twitter was Ms. Loomer’s most important publishing platform. Twitter’s ban of the @LauraLoomer account reduced her monthly income by approximately 75% alone, i.e., merely because of the Twitter ban. This reduction in her income increased , however, due to the resulting and foreseeable cascade of social media and online service bans that followed.
For example, on February 6, 2019, PayPal, following Twitter, also banned Ms. Loomer, thus preventing her from using the popular service to accept donations. Venmo soon followed and Chase limited Ms. Loomer’s online access to her accounts.
Appellants filed this action on April 18, 2019.That same day, CAIR responded publicly through Ahmed Mohamed,the Director of Litigation for CAIR’s New York Office, who posted a tweet on Twitter that Ms. Loomer’s loss of income was a fate he was “praying all Islamophobes suffer.”  Likewise, on April 18, 2018, Muhammad Sattaur, Director of Outreach for CAIR New York, tweeted similar sentiments,and, referred to Ms. Loomer’s ban by Twitter, Paypal, Venmo and Chase Bank, specifically challenged Facebook to do the same, demanding: “@Facebook, what are you waiting on?”
By denying her access to social media accounts, Loomer’s case alleges that CAIR’s conduct constitutes tortious interference — a legal term referring to the deliberate damaging of a person’s business relationship with another entity, in this case, Twitter.
A report in the Wall Street Journal last year revealed that CAIR did indeed lobby Twitter to ban Loomer.
The appeal, filed on behalf of Loomer by First Amendment lawyer Ron Coleman, can be read in full here.

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Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.

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