Elon Musk's X given six weeks to file defence to George Galloway's defamation claim

High Court reporters

The High Court has given social media platform X six weeks to file its defence to British politician George Galloway’s High Court defamation claim over his account being previously labelled “Russian state-affiliated”.

Mr Justice Oísín Quinn said that if the company formerly known as Twitter fails to comply with the order, Mr Galloway’s legal team can return to court to seek a court judgment against X for defaulting in its defence.

Barrister Peter Girvan, instructed by Kevin Winters, of Belfast legal firm KRW Law, for Mr Galloway, earlier said the defence papers are already 20 months late.

X was represented in court by barrister Jennifer Goode.

In his legal proceedings, the British politician and broadcaster alleges the social media company, which is based in Dublin, unlawfully processed his personal data by labelling and censoring his account.

The “Russian state-affiliated media” designation by Twitter had appeared on Mr Galloway’s profile and on tweets posted on the network, but no longer does so.

At the time, Mr Galloway released a statement saying Twitter’s “unjust labelling of honestly held political views is the New McCarthyism and it must be held accountable”.

The platform has since been taken over by billionaire Elon Musk and has been renamed X.

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.