Federal Court orders Twitter to release details of @PRGuy17 account

Twitter has been ordered to release information that could unmask a pro-Labor account that was a staunch supporter of Melbourne’s lockdowns.

The Federal Court has ordered social media behemoth Twitter to handover personal details linked to a controversial pro-Labor account to a far-right activist who plans to sue them.

Twitter was on Tuesday given 14 days to hand over the “basic subscriber information” of the @PRGuy17 account, including email addresses and any names linked to the anonymous account, to alt-right commentator Avi Yemini.

Yemini plans to sue the Twitter account for defamation, but asked the Federal Court to help him determine the true identity of the user.

@PRGuy17 has garnered more than 78k followers after joining the online platform in March 2020 as the country was set to be plunged into its first coronavirus lockdown.

The controversial account has been a staunch supporter of Premier Daniel Andrews and Melbourne’s lockdown policies and regularly took aim at mainstream media.

The identity of the individual behind the handle, which has published 45,000 tweets, has remained a mystery.

Justice Debra Mortimer also ordered Twitter Inc to provide Yemini with the IP address for when the account was first registered and for the period between 31 December 2021 – 11 February 2022 and 21 March 2022 – 20 May 2022.