>Twitter may assert its rights to associate with whom it pleases. Under different law (the same that protects Hacker News and every other US-based user content

>Twitter may assert its rights to associate with whom it pleases. Under different law (the same that protects Hacker News and every other US-based user content site in existence), Section 230 of the CDA, Twitter is also empowered to moderate as it wishes to the best of its abilities without having to be 100% perfect without incurring liability rather then being forced to choose between full common carrier or full publisher. Absolutely. Your analysis WRT 1st Amendement and CDA230 were spot on. I'd add that while Twitter isn't liable for the speech of the anonymous "FBI Agent", in this case no one is suing Twitter for liability. Rather, Twitter was trying to quash a subpoena for potentially identifying data about the twitter handle "@whyspertech" in a civil suit brought by Seth Rich's brother. The judge's order[0] upholding the subpoena lists Twitter as a "non-party" in the defamation lawsuit and provides background and context to the court's denial of the motion to quash the subpoena. This isn't a First Amendment case at all, it's an issue of discovery in a civil case, regardless of Twitter's claim to be attempting to protect the anonymity of the twitter handle. As the order[0] states: "Motions to quash are limited by the scope of discovery under of Fed. R. Civ. P. 26, which states that “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). The relevancy standard under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26 also applies to third-party subpoenas." [Removed excess whitespace for readability.] [0] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7223134/ORDER-RICH.txt https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7223134/ORDER-RIC...