NYC mayoral candidate Walden sues X after site ‘permanently’ suspends his account

January 9, 2025 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Mayoral candidate Jim Walden. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

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CITYWIDE — ATTORNEY JIM WALDEN, independent candidate for New York City Mayor, has filed a lawsuit against social media site X for “permanently” suspending his account on Dec. 12 in the midst of the mayoral campaign. X claimed his account was “inauthentic,” despite the fact that the company had verified it with a blue checkmark, and has not responded to numerous requests to reactivate it, Walden said in a release Wednesday.

This is not the first time that Walden, a prominent attorney and former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, has sued the company. In 2023, he represented a Saudi aid worker who was identified, captured and tortured after X divulged his identity to Saudi officials. Walden said that X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, had refused entreaties to use its influence with the Saudi Royal family to release the victims, calling it “a decision that came from Musk directly.”

“We are prepared to aggressively litigate the matter in court until his account is restored and we get certainty that X has deployed no ‘shadow ban’ against his campaign account,” Walden’s lawyer, Imran H. Ansari of Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins, PC, said in a statement.

The Brooklyn Eagle has reached out to X for comment, and will update this story if they respond.

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