Published 14:45 IST, July 18th 2020
Justin Bieber wins the first round of lawsuit to subpoena Twitter & identify accusers
Justin Bieber has won the first round of the $20 million defamation lawsuit and will now be allowed to subpoena Twitter and identify the accusers.
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In June 2020, pop star Justin Bieber was accused of sexual assault by two Twitter users on social media. Justin then went on record and shared a series of hotel receipts and email screenshots which addressed the allegations made against him. The allegations were shared on Twitter back on June 20 by an anonymous user.
On June 25, Bieber filed a $20 million defamation lawsuit against the two anonymous users. Now, the Baby singer has won the first round of the defamation suit.
Justin Bieber wins first round of the lawsuit
On July 17, 2020, Justin Bieber won the first round of the defamation suit and now his lawyers will be allowed to subpoena Twitter in order to learn the identities behind the anonymous users behind the Twitter account which accused Justin Bieber. As per reports, Justin' lawyer Evan Spiegel took to the Los Angeles Superior Court and stated to Judge Terry Green that the reason behind seeking Twitter's subpoena is in order to uncover who could be behind the allegations. The lawyer reportedly suspects that it may be one person who alleged Bieber of sexual assault.
As per reports, the lawsuit filed by Justin Bieber claims that the anonymous users fraudulently schemed to seek attention and fame by posting 'despicable, blatantly false, fabricated and defamatory' accusations that Bieber engaged in sexual assault. The lawsuit claims furthermore that the two individuals are actually trying to capitalize on the fear ongoing in the entertainment industry surrounding sexual assault allegations.
Twitter's guidelines state that the non-public information about a Twitter user will not be released to law enforcement unless in response to an appropriate legal process such as a subpoena, which has now been successfully acquired by Justin's lawyer. Spiegel told the judge that the women who accused Justin cannot be served until they are identified and a subpoena is placed on Twitter. But, it may take months to obtain any information from the social networking platform, as seen earlier in several cases. After the allegations, Justin had come forward publically and stated that it was 'factually impossible'. Further developments in the case are still awaited.
14:46 IST, July 18th 2020