Far-right figure Charles C. Johnson sued Twitter on Monday over his 2015 ban from the social media site

The right-wing provocateur filed a lawsuit against Twitter in the California Superior Court in Fresno on Monday, according to BuzzFeed.

The social media company banned the former Breitbart reporter in 2015 over a tweet in which he ask for help to “take out” high-profile Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson.

ADVERTISEMENT

The lawsuit is the latest move from Johnson against Twitter. Previously, BuzzFeed reported, Johnson had

shorted the company’s stock and launched a small scale internet campaign urging others to do the same.

Johnson’s lawyer will reportedly argue that Twitter arbitrarily banned Johnson for his political views, infringing on his right to free speech.

“This is going to be a very serious case over the freedom of the internet,” Johnson told BuzzFeed News on Monday. “And whether people have the right to say what they mean and mean what they say.”

Twitter has not yet made public how it will handle the suit, but the company will likely have a defense in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields internet companies from large amounts of legal liability for what happens on their platforms.

Twitter’s recent moves to curb the presence of trolls and offensive content on its platforms have frustrated fringe-right internet activists like Johnson, who argue that they’re being unfairly silenced on Twitter.

Others, who say that Twitter has become a cesspool of abuse and hate speech, have praised the firm's moves.