A Canadian businessman has sued Twitter over publication of what he terms "false and defamatory" tweets which increased during the 2016 US presidential election.

In a civil claim filed in the the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Frank Giustra, known as one of Canada's wealthiest businessmen and philanthropists, alleged that the tweets damaged his business and philanthropic relationships, The Globe and Mail reported on Friday.

The civil claim filed on Tuesday claimed that the tweets attempted to discredit Giustra over his charitable work supporting the Clinton Foundation.

The five-page claim includes an appendix with the text of dozens of "false, defamatory, abusive and threatening tweets", said the report.

"Twitter has neglected or refused to remove" many of these "defamatory" tweets, according to the claim.

Some of these tweets linked the Canadian businessman with the "pizzagate" conspiracy theory that associated then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to a fictitious child-sex ring.

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"The tweets have damaged (Giustra's) professional and personal reputation and are likely to bring the plaintiff's character into disrepute," the claim reads.

Social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter have been facing severe criticism for failure to remove hateful content from their platforms fast for quite some time now. (IANS)