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I could be wrong, but if Twitter spoke as itself and said “Hunter’s laptop was hacked,” then they can be held liable outside of 230, because that is their own s

I could be wrong, but if Twitter spoke as itself and said “Hunter’s laptop was hacked,” then they can be held liable outside of 230, because that is their own speech. There’s no magic loophole where a platform’s own speech can be immunized. However, this sounds like a horrible case, if they didn’t specifically accuse someone of hacking it. In addition, just because the shop owner reportedly took title to the laptop hardware when it was abandoned, doesn’t mean that he took title to all the material on the laptop. I doubt anyone is going to find someone guilty for defamation for calling the doxxing of someone with data from their own laptop, abandoned or not, “hacking”.

dukeofdoom 6y ago
I feel empathy for the store owner. He legitimately got in a situation in which people get whacked like in the movies. After he disclosed the laptop to the FBI, the FBI threatened him. So in such a political case, judges and the whole corrupt system is legitimately out to get you. The fact that he made copies that he gave to press may have saved his life. So I can't really blame him for any leaking anything either. Under the circumstances it was probably the smartest thing he could have done. The judge in the lawsuit, already made some rulings invoking section 230 protections