A federal judge is sending out signals he may take Twitter to task over its designation as a “private entity” after the platform banned a Massachusetts Senate candidate. In a recent memorandum filed by Judge Mark Wolf, he laid out that Twitter may be considered a state actor if government officials have compelled it to do certain actions.
This all stems from a case in which Dr. V. A. Shiva, who ran in the Massachusetts 2020 Senate election, had his Twitter account suspended for casting doubt on the results of the presidential election. He later filed a lawsuit claiming his account was deleted at the behest of employees working under Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin.
