BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Paul Tweed made his name suing news organizations like CNN, Forbes and The National Enquirer on behalf of Hollywood movie stars, winning high-profile cases for celebrities like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake by hopscotching among Belfast, London and Dublin to take advantage of their favorable defamation or privacy laws.
So it was telling last year when Mr. Tweed stopped by the Dublin office of a lawyer for Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants — many of which keep their non-United States headquarters in Ireland for tax reasons — with some half-playful questions.
Was public sentiment turning against the companies? Mr. Tweed wanted to know. Was a groundswell building over fake news, hate speech, revenge porn, online sex trafficking, defamation and privacy rights?
“It was odd,” the Dublin lawyer, Richard Woulfe, recalled. “He wanted to sound me out, to find out my view on whether there were going to be more cases like this in the future.”
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