A federal judge has tossed a defamation suit against Twitter for allegedly portraying the owner of a computer repair shop as a “hacker,” saying the court could not consider evidence such as a New York Post story that identified the man’s business as the source of files leaked from President Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s laptop during then-President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
In an order issued Monday in Florida federal court, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom found that Twitter did not defame John Paul Mac Isaac when it announced that the New York Post had violated its rules against distributing “hacked material” because the statements didn’t identify or describe Isaac or his business.
Isaac sued the social media giant in February for “spreading the false belief” that he was a hacker and for igniting online backlash and threats to the extent that he was forced to shutter his business, he told the court.
The dispute traces back to April 2019, when Hunter Biden brought his damaged laptop into Isaac’s Mac Shop for data recovery but never returned or paid for the service, according to court records. Isaac later turned the hardware over to the FBI that December in cooperation with a subpoena, and then shared a copy of the files with an attorney for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, an active supporter of then-President Donald Trump. Giuliani contacted the New York Post.
Isaac spoke to Post reporters to confirm the source of the information and requested anonymity, according to the order. But when the Post ran a story based on Hunter Biden’s emails on Oct. 14, 2020, it included a photo disclosing the name of Isaac’s shop. The Post realized its mistake and updated the article, the order said, but not before sharing it on social media platforms. By that time, other media outlets, including the Daily Beast, had already identified Isaac as the source.
Twitter suspended the Post’s account the same day, announcing that the media company had violated its policies by distributing “material obtained by hacking.” While the tweets made no reference to Isaac or Mac Shop, he argued that when taken together with the Post’s identifying story, Twitter’s explanations led readers to believe that Isaac was a hacker and thus caused the subsequent backlash.
But after expressing her skepticism in a hearing last month, Judge Bloom on Monday found that while “there is no strict requirement in Florida that an allegedly defamed person be named in a publication for the statement to be actionable … Florida courts have long held that if a defamed person is not named in the defamatory publication,” the statement itself must provide enough information to identify the injured person.
The order rejects Isaac’s argument that the court should consider “extrinsic evidence such as the NY Post article,” which identified him as the source of data that Twitter characterized as “hacked.” According to the order, Florida law “dictates that defamation per se must be ‘actionable on its face’ and does not require additional explanation of the words used to show that they have a defamatory meaning or that the person defamed is the plaintiff,” Judge Bloom wrote.
Furthermore, the cases that Isaac cited in support of his assertion were “readily discernible” from the current action, the order states, because each of them “involved statements in which there was a clear description of an ascertainable person within the communication itself.”
“Here, in contrast, the only persons identified in the [Twitter] explanations are the NY Post, Hunter Biden, ‘Ukrainian biz man’ and ‘dad’ — not Plaintiff, his business, or any other descriptive information that made Plaintiff’s identity readily ascertainable,” the judge wrote.
Judge Bloom also rejected arguments that the suit did not fall within the scope of Florida’s anti SLAPP statute because Twitter made these statements in the course of suppressing — not moderating — a discussion of public issues. While this particular distinction has not yet been addressed by Florida courts, the order said, “numerous other courts” have established Twitter’s right to decide what to publish and what not to publish on its platform.
The order granted Twitter’s request for attorney fees, finding that Isaac’s suit was “without merit” and arose from “protected First Amendment activity — i.e., preventing the dissemination of the NY Post Article on its platform for violation of its content moderation policies.”
“The Court is certainly sympathetic to the events that took place and could envision a plausible claim had the explanations identified the ‘Mac Shop,’ ‘a Delaware repair shop’ or even included a photo of the Repair Authorization. However, such is not the case here, and the law will not subject Defendant to liability where it was ‘meticulous enough’ to preserve Plaintiff’s anonymity,” the judge said.
Isaac’s first suit, which was filed in December 2020 and sought $500 million in damages, was dismissed from federal court because he was a Delaware resident at the time and Twitter is chartered in the state. Isaac now reports that he lives in Colorado, creating a diversity that opened the dispute to federal jurisdiction.
The parties did not immediately reply to requests for comment Tuesday.
Mac Isaac is represented by Brian R. Della Rocca of Compass Law Partners and Wesley Reid Harvin II of Harvin & Harvin LLP.
Twitter is represented by Kathleen R. Hartnett, Kyle C. Wong and Alexander J. Kasner of Cooley LLP, and Jennifer Olmedo-Rodriguez and A. Sheila Oretsky of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC.
The case is John Paul Mac Isaac v. Twitter Inc. et al., case number 1:21-cv-20684, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
–Additional reporting by Nathan Hale and Jeff Montgomery. Editing by Steven Edelstone.
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