Texas Secessionists Drops Lawsuit Alleging Social Media Gag

The Texas Nationalist Movement has dropped a lawsuit against Meta, owner of the social media giant Facebook, that said the platform restricted posts linking to one of the group’s websites.

Daniel Miller, the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, said on his “Late Night Coffee Talk: Live TEXIT Q&A” show, which was broadcast via Facebook and YouTube on August 28, that he decided to drop the suit over the cost and because the case had been moved to a federal court in California.

The secessionist organization filed the case after saying Facebook had blocked certain posts from its TEXITnow.net website in contravention of Chapter 143A of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, which says a social media platform “may not censor a user, a user’s expression, or a user’s ability to receive the expression of another person” based on the user’s viewpoint or “geographic location in this state.”

During his show, Miller responded to a message from a viewer who asked whether the TNM case would be affected by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent statement that the government “pressured” his platform to censor content during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We actually wound up withdrawing the suit,” Miller replied, adding: “Ultimately, it boiled down to really two things. Number one was money. I’m not castigating anyone, but we’re just not getting the contributions to the Defend Texit effort like we need to execute this sort of thing.”

“As we move into the next legislative session, we’re having to make some serious choices about where we’re going to spend money and how we’re raising money, and frankly everyone is huffing fumes,” he said, adding: “Lawyers cost money. They’re not cheap, and good lawyers cost more money.”

Miller continued: “The second thing, which really exacerbated the first thing, is the fact that the case was removed to San Francisco. Meta was successful in getting the case moved to federal court and successful in getting the case moved out of a Texas federal court to a federal court in San Francisco.”

“You think about the logic of this,” he said. “We sued under a Texas law, and it was kicked to a court in San Francisco. So are we going to get any justice out there? Probably not.”

Miller blamed the case being moved to California on a loophole in the original legislation that “you could drive a Mack Truck through.” He said that while the “loophole was fixed” eventually, it was too late for the group’s case against Meta.

Newsweek contacted Meta and Daniel Miller for comment by email and X direct message, respectively, outside regular office hours.

In May, Texas nationalists scored a major victory when supporters of a Texan independence referendum were elected as the chair and vice chair of the Republican Party of Texas. The following month, the Texas GOP included holding a referendum on independence in its 2024 platform and legislative priorities document.

A survey conducted exclusively for Newsweek earlier this year found that in a hypothetical referendum, 23 percent of Texans would vote for the state to become “an independent country,” while 67 percent supported it remaining “a state within the United States.”