#SUING TWITTER
West Vancouver billionaire Frank Giustra has been cleared to sue Twitter in a B.C. court over tweets tying him to baseless conspiracy theories involving pedophiles.
VANCOUVER • B.C. billionaire Frank Giustra has won the right to sue Twitter for defamation, after a judge ruled that B.C. courts have jurisdiction to hear the case.
In April 2019, Giustra filed a lawsuit claiming that he had faced a targeted attack on the social media giant’s platform by a group that set out to vilify him for political purposes, starting around February 2015 and escalating during the 2016 u.s. presidential election.
Giustra, who sits on the board of the Clinton Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by former u.s. president Bill Clinton, said the tweets accused him of being involved in “Pizzagate,” a debunked child sex-trafficking conspiracy theory.
The West Vancouver businessman and philanthropist said the tweets also left the false impression that he was corrupt, a “murderous thief” and a criminal.
In July 2019, Twitter filed an application to dismiss or stay the case on grounds that B.C. courts lacked jurisdiction in the matter.
The company, which is based in California, argued that the case would be better heard in the united States, but Giustra pointed out that he has a substantial profile and reputation in both Canada and the u.s.
In his ruling on the case, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elliott Myers said it wasn’t his job to deal with the merits of Giustra’s claim.
He noted that the case illustrated the jurisdictional difficulties with internet defamation, when the publication
of defamatory comments takes place in multiple countries where the plaintiff has a reputation to protect.
“The presumption is that a defendant should be sued in only one jurisdiction for an alleged wrong, but that is not a simple goal to achieve fairly for internet defamation.”
The judge observed that a “significant factor” was that both parties acknowledge under American law, Twitter would not be liable for damages to Giustra in the u.s. due to freedom of speech provisions in the First Amendment.
Whether Canadian common law provides similar protections for a platform such as Twitter would have to be determined at trial.
The judge said there was no evidence as to the number of people in B.C. who would have access to the tweets and no firm evidence of the number of Twitter users.
But he accepted indications that there were at least 500,000 Twitter users in the province.
For the purposes of a jurisdictional challenge, he said Giustra had demonstrated damage to his reputation here in Canada.
“I do not agree with Twitter who argues that ‘of all places in the world, the plaintiff’s reputation has not been harmed in B.C.’”
The judge said it was up to Twitter to rebut the presumption of a “real and substantial” connection based on a tort having been committed in the province, and concluded that it had failed to do so.
He found that the B.C. Supreme Court had jurisdiction over the claim.
Court heard that Giustra began his career in the securities industry in Vancouver and eventually became chairman and CEO of yorkton Securities, a leading natural resources investment bank with offices across Canada.
He is now chairman of Fiore Financial Corp., a private equity firm that manages investments for clients in B.C. and around the world. Giustra also founded Lionsgate Entertainment in Vancouver, one of the world’s largest independent film companies.
Although Twitter has yet to file a response to the defamation claims, the company has indicated that it intends to defend the case mainly on the basis that it is not a publisher of the tweets.
Twitter also expects to call witnesses to testify about the company’s inability to monitor the hundreds of millions of tweets posted to the platform each day.
In a statement, Giustra said that he was pleased with the court’s ruling and looks forward to pursuing his case in B.C.
“I hope this lawsuit will help raise public awareness of the real harm to society if social media platforms are not held responsible for the content posted and published on their sites,” he said.
“I believe that words do matter, and recent events have demonstrated that hate speech can incite violence with deadly consequences.”