Twitter has filed a lawsuit against the administration of President Trump. The move comes after the Department of Homeland Security demanded the company reveal the identity of the person behind @ALT_USCIS back in March.
The account in question is run anonymously and has been very critical of the President's immigration policies.
Twitter states the request amounts to an "unlawful" use of the government's powers. The company says bowing to the government's request “would have a grave chilling effect on the speech of that account in particular and on the many other ‘alternative agency’ accounts that have been created to voice dissent to government policies.”
@ALT_USCIS posted the following tweet yesterday afternoon in response to the controversy.
— ALT🛂 Immigration (@ALT_uscis) April 6, 2017
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has come out to criticise the Trump administration over its conduct in relation to this matter.
“The Department of Homeland Security appears to have abused its authority and wasted taxpayer resources, all to uncover an anonymous critic on Twitter,” he told Recode in a statement.
Free Speech
Twitter has been very outspoken about defending free speech on its platform over the years.
In a post published in November 2016, the company stated, "As a company, our commitment to social justice is core to our mission and well established. And our policies in this area are long-standing. Using Twitter’s Public APIs or data products to track or profile protesters and activists is absolutely unacceptable and prohibited."
