Yesterday, a California judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit that challenges Twitter’s ban of one of its former users, the controversial Jared Taylor.

I may write more on the case later, but the transcript of the ruling makes for pretty entertaining reading, as far as these things go. My understanding is the ruling is permanent. The transcript will make more sense if you have a copy of the complaint handy.

The judge knocked out two of the claims in the complaint: violation of the California Constitution (made famous by Pruneyard) and violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act. But the judge left in place the other: violation of the Unfair Competition Law, which bars “any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising.”

Twitter made some pretty surprising claims in the hearing. For example, it agreed with this query by the judge: “So is your position that Twitter … has an absolute First Amendment right to remove anybody from its platform, even if doing so would be discriminatory on the basis of religion, gender…”?  Twitter’s counsel cited the Hurley case, but that does not strike me as all that relevant. Twitter is a business, not the Boy Scouts or a group of people organizing their own parade. I’m not saying Twitter is wrong, but I don’t think there is any precedent on this point, and I found it surprising Twitter would claim this right.

And shame on Twitter for filing an anti-SLAPP claim in the case, a thuggish tactic. They lost on that point, thankfully.

To date, here is the best article on the proceedings yesterday.