Twitter dropped its lawsuit after the US government withdrew its demand to unmask those behind anti-Trump account

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SAN FRANCISCO - Twitter on Friday dropped a lawsuit it had filed a day earlier against the U.S. government, saying in court papers that the government had withdrawn a summons for information about an account critical of President Donald Trump.

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How it all started

The lawsuit began over an anonymous account, claimed to be run by federal immigration employees, that the US government was looking to unmask. After Trump's inauguration in January, anonymous Twitter feeds voicing concerns about more than a dozen US government agencies appeared to challenge the president's views on climate change and other issues.

In its initial lawsuit against the US government pushing back on the demand, Twitter said the account in question, @ALT_USCIS, had been known to "express public criticism of the department and the current administration," but that Twitter and its users were protected under the First Amendment.

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Twitter account @ALT_USCIS US government lawsuit screenshot profile

Twitter

A screenshot of the ALT_USCIS Twitter account that the Trump administration was looking to unmask

The US government, Twitter said in the complaint, "may not compel Twitter to disclose information regarding the real identities of these users without first demonstrating that some criminal or civil offense has been committed, that unmasking the users' identity is the least restrictive means for investigating that offense, that the demand for this information is not motivated by a desire to suppress free speech, and that the interests of pursuing that investigation outweigh the important First Amendment rights of Twitter and its users."

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Twitter said the "defendants have not come close to making any of those showings."

"The rights of free speech afforded Twitter's users and Twitter itself under the First Amendment of the US Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech," Twitter said in the lawsuit.

(Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)