Dominion Voting Systems is taking some of the most vocal election fraud conspiracy theorists to court over their toothless claims in a string of billion-dollar defamation lawsuits. But with social media platforms purging far-right commentators and cracking down on election misinformation among other long-overdue moderation measures, Dominion has reportedly reached out to ensure all of those bullshit posts potential pieces of evidence are preserved.
On Thursday, Dominion’s lawyers reportedly sent letters to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Parler asking them to preserve posts about the voting machine manufacturer from a slew of prominent conservative pundits and news outlets. They argued the posts need to be saved, even if the material has already been removed for violating moderation policies, “because they are relevant to Dominion’s defamation claims relating to false accusations that Dominion rigged the 2020 election,” according to demand letters reviewed by several outlets from Dominion’s law firm Clare Locke.
Dominion’s lawyers also warned that the company is not finished doling out defamation lawsuits yet, promising that “more will follow.” Former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, who is reportedly cited in the letters as one of the folks who posted content that could be relevant to Dominion’s cases, is already facing a defamation lawsuit from Dominion. The company is seeking $US1.3 ($2) billion in damages from both Powell and fellow Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani over their election fraud claims.
Some of the others listed in the letters include far-right commentator Dan Bongino, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and the father-son duo that helped get the QAnon crazy train going, Ron and Jim Watkins. The list also includes Fox News proper, One America News Network, and Donald Trump himself in regards to his now-banned Twitter account. Twitter declined to comment on Dominion’s correspondence.
In a letter reviewed by the Washington Post, Dominion sent Google, the owner of YouTube, the following appeal:
“We respectfully request that YouTube preserve and retain all posts, messages, documents, data, and electronically stored information relating in any way to Dominion or the disinformation campaign referenced above. This preservation request applies to posts and comments about Dominion that YouTube has removed for violating its terms of use.”
Facebook, Parler, Google did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Dominion, whose voting machines are used around the country, has been a frequent target of baseless conspiracy theories since the 2020 election was called for Joe Biden as the winner. Trump’s legal team and his cohort of media pundits have pushed far too many sweeping — and often contradictory — allegations both in court and on the air to get into each crackpot claim individually, but the gist of it is that voting machine manufacturers somehow colluded with Democrats and foreign governments to electronically manipulate vote tallies so it would look like Biden won. It goes without saying that there’s zero evidence to support those claims, and attesting to that fact are the dozens of lawsuits Republican lawmakers have already lost trying to argue any widespread voter fraud took place.