Devin Nunes ‘cow’ parody account overtakes Nunes in Twitter followers

A parody account at the center of a lawsuit by Rep. David Nunes (R-Calif.) surpassed Nunes in Twitter followers since the suit was filed.

On Monday, Nunes sued the operator of the account, “Devin Nunes’ Cow,” along with Twitter itself and an account purporting to represent his mother, for defamation. By the next afternoon, the account had increased its follower count from 1,000 followers to nearly 150,000. 

{mosads}By Wednesday afternoon, the account had overtaken Nunes himself in followers, boasting 440,000 to his 395,000.

Nunes’s lawsuit is seeking more than $250 million from Twitter, the two parody accounts and Republican operative Liz Mair. The California Republican accused the social media giant of “facilitating defamation on its platform” by allowing the two accounts to remain active.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” Wednesday that Nunes had “no case at all,” calling it “wrong from a political and ideological point of view.” In response, the parody account quipped that “The guy who defended OJ won’t defend Devin.” 

The guy who defended OJ won’t defend Devin. Huh. https://t.co/zCAJ9DUn7G

— Devin Nunes’ cow (@DevinCow) March 20, 2019

Despite the boost in followers for the account and widespread mockery of the lawsuit, conservatives have renewed claims of bias from tech giants in recent days.

Trump social media director Dan Scavino was briefly blocked from posting after Facebook mistook him for a bot, prompting President Trump to pledge to “look into” the decision. Later on Tuesday, Trump accused Google, Facebook and Twitter of colluding to silence conservatives.