There's a phenomenon on the internet called the "Streisand Effect," whereby a person's attempt to suppress information ends up widely publicizing that very same information. It was named after a 2003 incident when Barbra Streisand tried to keep images of her Malibu mansion off the web and inadvertently drew massive amounts of attention to it. And it's why Devin Nunes' mom was trending on Twitter Tuesday morning.
Nunes, the Republican congressman from California, said he was filing a lawsuit against Twitter and three specific Twitter users, seeking $250 million in damages. Nunes argues that the users defamed him and that Twitter “knowingly acted as a vessel for opposition research" and allowed defamatory statements against prominent conservatives to spread.
Two of the users named in the suit, which has not been yet been filed but was obtained by some news outlets, go by the usernames "Devin Nunes' Mom" and "Devin Nunes Cow." The former account was suspended, while the latter has spent the last two years calling Nunes names like "udder-ly worthless" and a "treasonous cowpoke."
The cow had about 1,200 followers before the lawsuit made headlines. It now counts 89,000 followers as of midday Tuesday.
Speaking to Fox News Monday night, Nunes called those accounts part of an "orchestrated effort" to target him for his allegiance to President Trump and his investigation, as the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, into Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. He called the suit "the first of many."
The lawsuit seeks to tie those obvious parody accounts to a larger issue that has become a grievance among some conservatives on Twitter, in which they claim that the social network actively censors their tweets through "shadow banning" their accounts to make them harder to find. Twitter has denied those allegations.
As a public official, Nunes' lawsuit would have to show "actual malice," the standard set by the landmark Supreme Court case NY Times v. Sullivan to prove libel against public figures. Hyperbole and satire are generally protected as free speech, and similar lawsuits have failed in the courts. The Sullivan decision recently generated headlines when conservative Justice Clarence Thomas publicly called for it to be reconsidered.
While Nunes' lawsuit may seem doomed legally, it did have the effect, unintended or not, of gaining him publicity, which has in the past burnished conservatives' reputations in the eyes of their boss.
Two years ago, Nunes seemed to have a different perspective on litigation: he was a co-sponsor of the "Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act."
Award-winning journalist, entrepreneur, and host Soledad O'Brien spoke to Cheddar about empowering women through her own podcast on financial literacy this Women's History Month.
Six House lawmakers are calling on Meta to stop paid ads from Chinese news companies that push Russian misinformation regarding the war in Ukraine. Matt Skibinski, General Manager, NewsGuard Technologies joins Cheddar to discuss the role of social media in this war.
Reva Shakkottai, Senior Vice President and financial advisor at RBC Wealth Management, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where she elaborates on factors besides Wednesday's Fed decision that led to gains across the major indexes on Thursday, including new home construction and jobless claims data.
Art Hogan, Chief Market Strategist at National Securities, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he breaks down Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech following the U.S. central bank's decision to raise rates and explains why Powell's comments move the markets more than the Fed decision itself.
Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif. 29th District) joined Cheddar News at South By Southwest to discuss the variety of sanctions that the United States has placed on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine began last month and the impacts they are having both domestically and abroad. With rising gas prices, especially in states like California, Schiff noted that the American people are willing to make sacrifices in order to uphold their values and suggested that crisis may be a warning to shift away from fossil fuels. "At the end of the day though, this ought to be a wake up call that we need to stop our reliance on this oil economy and move to renewable sources of energy," he said. Schiff also explained his remarks about the January 6 commission investigating those closest to former President Trump and touched on a disturbing case in San Francisco where the police department used rape kit samples to ID a murder suspect.
Markets opened lower as the Federal Reserve announces plans to hike interest rates by a quarter point, while signaling six additional rate hikes later this year. Gary Schlossberg, Global Strategist, Wells Fargo Investment Institute, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
Apple's Racial Equity and Justice Initiative is a $100 million program aimed at combating systemic racism while working to advance racial equity across the country. Alisha Johnson, director of the initiative, joined Cheddar at SXSW to discuss the work being done. "We focused on three critical areas. The first is education. The second is criminal justice reform, and the third is economic empowerment, really looking first in our own supply chain, how can we really increase our spend with Latinx, Hispanic, and indigenous-owned businesses," she said. "And then how can we go further to empower entrepreneurs who have been cut out of access to funding and capital and really help them to get the funding."
What you Need to Know on Thursday, March 17. Updates from Ukraine, President Biden refers to Putin as a ‘war criminal’ for the first time, Walmart has ambitious hiring targets for Q1, and Netflix takes steps to crack down on password sharing.
