A U.S. court has dismissed a lawsuit against the nation’s most prominent Muslim organisation by the anti-Islam activist Laura Loomer.
Loomer was trying to sue The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, for allegedly conspiring with Twitter to ban her account.
But the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled that the defects in her lawsuit appeared irreparable and did not give her an opportunity to amend it.
Judge Rodolfo Ruiz wrote: “Plaintiffs’ suggestion that the mere reporting of a Twitter user — however insistent such reporting may be — is sufficient to constitute tortious interference in a business relationship between Twitter and the targeted user is, to put it mildly, nonsensical.”
CAIR had reported Loomer to Twitter over her Islamophobic posts before her ban, and she complained that this had destroyed her business relationship with potential donors as well as Twitter itself.
But the court ruled that Loomer had failed to establish an actual business relationship with identifiable customers or Twitter.
CAIR Trial Attorney Carolyn Homer, who argued the motion to dismiss in court, said: “Today’s victory is not just for CAIR against a conspiracy theorist, but is also a victory for all internet users who flag objectionable, hate-filled content for moderation.”
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CAIR National Litigation Director Lena Masri said: “We are pleased the court recognised that Loomer’s complaint against CAIR was baseless. Her own pattern of anti-Muslim rhetoric is what caused Twitter and at least eight other internet platforms to ban her, not any actions by CAIR.”
And CAIR Trial Attorney Justin Sadowsky added: “Loomer sued CAIR because Twitter banned her for being an Islamophobe, but two pranksters convinced her that the ban was some sort of Muslim conspiracy between CAIR and Twitter. In any event, CAIR is not legally liable for Twitter’s decision to ban her.”
Loomer, 26, is banned from Twitter, Facebook, PayPal, Uber and several other internet platforms.
The far-right activist often labelled Muslims as terrorists or anti-semites and Islam as bigoted.
In 2017, following a terrorist attack in New York City, Loomer tweeted that she was late to a conference because she could not find a “non Muslim cab or @Uber @lyft driver.” She called for the creation of a new ride-sharing company which did not employ Muslims after it became known that the suspect in the attack was a former driver for Uber.
Her day-long “tweetstorm” blamed all Muslims for the activities of “radical Islamists” such as ISIS. Following this, both Uber and Lyft announced that she had violated their guidelines and was banned from using their services.
In August 2018, Loomer disrupted a congressional campaign event for Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar which was attended by House candidate Rashida Tlaib. Loomer shouted questions which implied that Tlaib was anti-Semitic.
Later that year, Loomer was banned from Twitter for a tweet about the newly elected Congresswoman in which Loomer called Omar “anti-Jewish,” and described her as a member of a religion in which “homosexuals are oppressed” and women are “abused” and “forced to wear the hijab.”
A week following the ban, she handcuffed herself to the front door of the Twitter headquarters in New York City in protest while wearing a yellow “Jude” patch.
“I’ve been silenced in America,” Loomer said in a video posted to YouTube in response to the Twitter ban. She had more than 260,000 followers on the social-media platform before her suspension.
