X Corp., the corporate name for the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, is suing a non-profit that accused Elon Musk’s company of allowing hate speech to fester online.
In the new federal lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, X Corp. categorized how the defendants Center for Countering Digital Hate Inc. and Ltd., described as "activist organizations masquerading as research agencies," allegedly "have embarked on a scare campaign to drive away advertisers from the X platform."
The filing accuses the defendants of being "funded and supported by unknown organizations, individuals and potentially even foreign governments with ties to legacy media companies."
It further alleges that the Center for Countering Digital Hate has engaged in "a series of unlawful acts designed to improperly gain access to protected X Corp. data" needed so that the non-profit "could cherry-pick from the hundreds of millions of posts made each day on X and falsely claim it had statistical support showing the platform is overwhelmed with harmful content."
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, as a registered user of X, allegedly "scraped data" from the platform in violation of the terms of agreement and convinced an "unknown third party" to improperly share log in credentials. The filing argues that the Center for Countering Digital Hate used "flawed methodologies" to prepare "research" reports with the retrieved data to then create "faulty narratives" about the volume of harmful content on the X platform.
"CCDH uses those reports to demand that platform providers kick the targeted users off of their platforms, thus silencing their viewpoints on broadly debated topics such as COVID-19 vaccines, reproductive healthcare, and climate change," the 22-page complaint says. "In this manner, CCDH seeks to prevent public dialogue and the public’s access to free expression in favor of an ideological echo chamber that conforms to CCDH’s favored viewpoints."
The lawsuit alleges that companies, including large, multinational corporations, have paused paid advertising and/or paused plans for future paid advertising in reaction to seeing the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s "research" reports and articles. In effect, the complaint states, X Corp. has seen at least tens of millions of dollars in lost revenues as of the date of the complaint.
The lawsuit charges that the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s "scare campaign to global advertisers and its ongoing pressure on brands is an attempt to stifle freedom of speech on the X platform."
"Most fundamentally, X Corp. has been harmed in its mission to provide its users with a platform in which topics of paramount public concern can be discussed and debated free from the censorship efforts of activist organizations advancing narrow ideological agendas through deceitful means," the filing says.
During an appearance on CNN Tuesday, Center for Countering Digital Hate CEO Imran Ahmed responded to the lawsuit, arguing that the nonprofit has been "incredibly transparent about our methodology.
"The truth is he’s been casting around for a reason to blame us for his own failings as a CEO," Ahmed said of Musk. "Because we all know that when he took over, he put up the bat signal to racists, to misogynists, to homophobes, anti-Semites, saying Twitter is now a free speech platform. He welcomed them back on. He actually reinstated accounts that we suspended for spreading that kind of stuff. And now he’s surprised when people are able to quantify that there has been a resulting increase in hate and disinformation on his platform."
X Corp. is seeking a jury trial, monetary relief and for the group and its employees to be banned from accessing licensing materials and certain data related to the X platform.
On Monday, the Center for Countering Digital Hate said it had received a letter from X Corp.’s attorneys last week warning about the impending litigation. CCDH argued that "Elon Musk’s actions represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research in the desperate hope that he can stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers."
