San Francisco, Dec 29: A computer repair shop owner in the US has sued Twitter for $500 million in defamation after his name appeared in a controversial New York Post involving Joe Biden's son Hunter. The report in October claimed that Delaware-based The Mac Shop had been paid to recover data from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden. Twitter Public Verification Program to Be Re-Launched on January 20, 2021; Check Updated Plans & Policy Here.

It published emails and pictures allegedly from a copy of the hard drive. Facebook and Twitter both restricted the article on their respective platforms after it went viral, and Twitter pointed to its ban on posting "hacked materials" as an explanation.

Now, according to The Verge, John Paul Mac Isaac who was the owner of The Mac Shop, has sued Twitter, claiming the micro-blogging platform specifically made this decision to "communicate to the world that [Mac Isaac] is a hacker."

Isaac said that he is "now widely considered a hacker" because of Twitter. He is demanding $500 million and a public retraction from Twitter.

The complaint cited several negative business reviews that criticize Mac Isaac based on the facts of the story, "but it's unclear why Twitter should be held liable for those reviews". Twitter was yet to react to the report.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 29, 2020 12:10 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).