Shameful Discourse Or Shameful Lawsuit?

So, are we talking about shameful discourse or a shameful lawsuit? Because we’ve come to the point where a sitting member of Congress has filed a defamation lawsuit against Twitter, a Republican operative, and two parody accounts involving a fake mom (his) and a cow, all for comments made toward him on Twitter. Now, to be fair, Devin Nunes, at least in my opinion, has brought all of this on himself by supplicating himself at the feet of his king, but again, that’s just my opinion. It was bound to happen and it did. Accounts sprung up referencing his cow (his family is apparently in the dairy cow business) and his mom (not his mom) and then it was game on.

From my perspective, the tweets were at times informative and often hilarious, however, from Devin’s perspective, not so much. I get that, but it’s
Twitter, dude. You’re a public figure and the Constitution protects us when we speak out about you or to you. It’s what we do. And now, we do it on Twitter. @DevinCow had a handful of followers until this morning when she surpassed Devin in her follower count. I followed yesterday when she was only at 179k and felt embarrassed that I was so late to the party.

Devin’s vilification began soon after news of the lawsuit became available as did @DevinCow’s increasing follower count. And I suppose we can argue over whether or not it’s appropriate to call someone every name in the book on Twitter because after all, it’s considered abusive and can violate Twitter’s terms of service. But that applies to private citizens, not public figures. We can argue over whether that’s fair or right, but again, freedom of speech for this purpose is allowed.

I realize that it’s possible that Devin’s feelings were hurt. And maybe it can be argued that some people went too far in their comments, but again, he’s a public figure. Regardless of what anyone thinks, it’s constitutionally protected speech.

Time will tell if his shameful lawsuit even goes forward. It may be dismissed before it ever begins. But if not, Devin might consider leaving social media entirely.