The billionaire has been battling with the Anti-Defamation League over his use of Twitter and other platforms. He has been accused of amplifying antisemitism, and significant advertisers, including Apple and Disney, have paused their ads on X. On Friday, the White House publicly criticized Musk, accusing him of repeating a “hideous lie” behind the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre in which 11 people were killed by a gunman who believed in an antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews were behind the deaths of Jesus and other Biblical figures.
In a post on the social media platform X, Musk said X Corp would file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters and those who attacked X. The X post was a follow-up to an earlier one in which he said that his company’s platform X, which used to be known as Twitter, was being “shut down by big advertisers who have realized their ads are appearing on content that promotes hatred and violence.”
Media Matters claimed in an article published this week that corporate advertisements by IBM, Apple, Oracle, and Comcast’s Xfinity were being placed alongside antisemitic content. The report said that X was showing ads for these brands on posts that support Adolf Hitler and Nazism, endorse hateful views about Jewish people, and use racist hashtags such as ‘KeepEuropeWhite,’ ‘white pride’, and ‘WLM’ (White Lives Matter).
According to the complaint filed by X with the US District Court in Manhattan, the company lost millions of dollars in advertising revenue this year because of a scare campaign by Media Matters and other media outlets. The company also claims it has been flooded with false propaganda about the Israel-Hamas conflict.
X’s legal action against Media Matters is the latest development in a bitter public war between the tech giant and the nonprofit that monitors online hate speech. In a lawsuit, X, who owns the former Twitter, accused the Center for Countering Digital Hate of using “false and misleading research reports” to drive advertisers away from its platforms.
The lawsuit by X and its co-founder, Imran Ahmed, seeks tens of millions of dollars in damages. Among other things, the suit alleges that the center has been engaged in aggressive bullying and intimidation of media organizations. It is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the organization from intimidating and harassing its clients and a permanent injunction against X for violating free speech and equal protection under the First Amendment.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate has denied the allegations in a statement and called them “ridiculous.” In July, X sued the group for claiming that the company was censoring hateful content and defrauding its advertisers. A federal judge has yet to rule on the case. The judge’s decision could have far-reaching implications for the legality of content moderation on online platforms. It could set a precedent for whether or not companies are legally required to filter out content they consider harmful.
