https://vancouversun.com/news/national/b-c-man-sues-twitter-says-defamatory-tweets-linked-to-u-s-election/wcm/4dfba55d-9d05-4bc1-86f7-1ebb4ad91823

A British Columbia businessman and philanthropist is suing Twitter for publishing what he calls “false and defamatory” tweets that escalated during the 2016 United States election.

Frank Giustra is the founder of Lionsgate Entertainment and CEO of the Fiore Group of Companies, as well as a member of the board of trustees of the Clinton Foundation.

He says in a notice of civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court that he faced a targeted attack on Twitter by a group who set out to vilify him for political purposes starting around February 2015.

“Twitter began publishing a number of defamatory and malicious statements regarding the plaintiff,” says the notice of civil claim, filed on Tuesday.

“Those publications included tweets stating that the plaintiff is ’corrupt,’ a ’murderous thief,’ a ’criminal,’ and is involved in ’pizzagate,”’ it states, referring to an unfounded conspiracy theory that claims Democrats harbour child sex slaves at a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant.