A statement on my lawsuit against Twitter, my job as a journalist and my moving forward in reporting that Russia is a terrorist state

Wars have been fought on many fronts in 2022. I don't plan to back down on any of them because, like Ukraine, I've already won.

Denver, CO July 14, 2022 --–

“I’m in a war zone. I’ve been reporting from the frontlines of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine for more than four months, just attempting to do my job as a journalist. Eventually, the endemic number of death threats, rape claims, and horrific comments about my gender became more than a distraction, they traumatized me, affected my psyche, and became an impediment to my work. Twitter could have stopped them and didn’t, now the courts will handle this.”

-- Sarah Ashton-Cirillo

Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, the trailblazing journalist who is making history during the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the first, out, transgender war correspondent, has turned to the Law offices of Ian T. Hicks, LLC to battle an enemy nearly as deadly as the Russian Terrorists; those on Twitter who have attacked her daily for months with threats against her life, sexual assault fantasies, and malicious statements about her gender.

Although clearly against Twitter’s terms of service, and despite Ms. Ashton-Cirillo having made hundreds of reports to the social media app’s security team, the attacks on her have continued unabated. This includes doxxing of her personal information, posting her supposed geo-location details to kill her,  voluminous instances of misgendering and deadnaming her, and more generalized death, rape, and kidnapping threats. This has become such a common occurrence that the Committee to Protect Journalists began a file on the vile acts against Ms. Ashton-Cirillo.

Ms. Ashton-Cirillo is a public figure who has been featured in multiple outlets, including on the BBC and in Forbes, for her work in Ukraine. She regularly informs her more than 25,000 Twitter followers of the attacks against her, and yet we have proof that Twitter has done little to stop the flow of hate and vitriol aimed at her. If someone with as much reach and visibility as Ms. Ashton-Cirillo has attained cannot find help directly from Twitter in these instances, no one else stands much of a chance either. This is why the court system must step in and order relief. 

Sarah Ashton-Cirillois still in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and still carrying out her duties. She does not plan to let these mostly anonymous cowards scare her from reporting the facts from the front. Thus far her work has resulted in Maria Zakharova and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs publicly maligning her, as well as Colorado Republican Joe Oltmann accusing her of being an agent for the Ukrainian government. These two attacks are just further proof Ms. Ashton-Cirillo is excelling at her job, it's too bad that Twitter is allowing thousands of more against her to go unchecked.

Contact the Law Offices of Ian T. Hicks, LLC for more information on Sarah Ashton-Cirillovs. Twitter, Inc.

The case filing is located at Denver County - District Court: 2022CV031861, Division 466.