Legal representatives for former British Labour MP George Galloway will today ask X, formerly known as Twitter, to file its defence in a defamation case within six weeks in the High Court in Dublin.
Kevin Winters, of Belfast legal firm KRW Law, said he will be bringing forward a motion on behalf of his client, Mr Galloway, asking the court to instruct the social media platform to file its defence.
Mr Winters said X’s defence was now outstanding for two years and there was a “gross delay”.
Mr Galloway has taken a High Court action in Dublin against X for defamation after it previously labelled his account “Russian state-affiliated media”.
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The British politician and broadcaster is also claiming in the legal proceedings that the social media company unlawfully processed his personal data by labelling and censoring his account.
Mr Winters said previously that his client was taking the case in Dublin because “Twitter contests jurisdiction anywhere else” and because Ireland was where the data controller for all EU and UK Twitter accounts are asserted to be.
Mr Galloway is not expected to appear before the court on Monday.
X did not respond to a request for comment.
The “Russian state-affiliated media” designation by X had appeared on Mr Galloway’s profile and on tweets posted on the network, but no longer does so.
The 70-year-old presented The Mother of All Talk Shows on the Russian state-owned Radio Sputnik, and also presented Sputnik: Orbiting the World with George Galloway on the Kremlin-linked RT network, formerly known as Russia Today, until it was shut down with British government sanctions in March 2022 over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Galloway’s talk show continues to be broadcast on YouTube.
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