This evening, the Elon Musk-run X Corpfiled a frivolous lawsuit against progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters For America in the case called X Corp v. Media Matters For America, which is being filed in the far-right Northern District of Texas court in Fort Worth, Texas.
The X owner claims to be a “free speech absolutist”, but in reality, he is anything but a champion of free speech, as he has recently supported clamping down on pro-Palestinian speech and decided that “cis”/”cisgender” were “slurs”, in addition to filinghis frivolous lawsuit against MMFA for reporting on Musk’s right-wing extremism-coddling activities accurately, especially ever since he got ahold of X (formerly Twitter).
Several advertisers, including Comcast/NBCUniversal (where current CEO and Musk toady Linda Yaccarino formerly worked at), Apple, Disney, and Paramount Global, have pulled advertisements off of X in the wakeofMusk endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory over concerns about being placed next to White supremacist and antisemitic accounts.
Dominic Patten and Ted Johnson at Deadline:
It wasn’t exactly the “split second” the courthouse opened this morning as promised, but Elon Musk has now filed his self-described “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters.
“Defendant Media Matters for America is a self-proclaimed media watchdog that decided it would not let the truth get in the way of a story it wanted to publish about X Corp,” proclaimed the jury trial-seeking complaint filed in federal court in Texas. Musk and X’s three-claim disparagement suit primarily wants a preliminary and permanent injunction against Media Matters’ report on the alleged placing of corporate ads next to “Pro-Nazi Content.” (Read Elon Musk’s lawsuit over the pro-Nazi ad placement allegations here)
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It is worth noting that none of the media companies and others actually gave a reason why they paused their ad campaigns on the increasingly chaotic X/Twitter – and certainly one could speculate it had as much to do with Musk’s personal online amplification of antisemitic screech as much as the Pro-Nazi ad placement accusations.
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Last summer, X/Twitter sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate for defamation over the group’s reports on the platform’s lack of hate speech guardrails. On November 16, the group filed a motion to dismiss an anti-SLAPP motion last week, arguing that Musk’s platform had “ginned up baseless claims” in taking issue with how CCDH gathered its data.
Alejandra Caraballo, via X (formerly Twitter):
Matthew Keys on why Musk chose Texas to file his frivolous suit, via X:
Steve Stroth at Bloomberg, via Time:
Elon Musk’s X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, accused Media Matters for America in a lawsuit of “maliciously” trying to drive away advertisers from the social media platform by reporting that ads for Apple Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Oracle Corp. were running next to pro-Nazi content.
“Media Matters designed both these images and its resulting media strategy to drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.,” the company said in a complaint filed Monday in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas.
The report by the liberal watchdog group followed a flurry of antisemitic and other hate speech on X, some of which Musk himself promoted, eliciting outrage and alienating advertisers. Apple and Walt Disney Co. have suspended or halted ad spending on the platform.
X claims Media Matters kick-started a “blatant smear campaign” by publishing almost 20 articles against the social media platform and Musk in November. Media Matters is accused in the complaint of illegally interfering with X’s contracts with advertisers and making malicious and false statements that it’s intentionally placing ads near antisemitic posts.
The X Corp. v. Media Matters For America lawsuit is a frivolous lawsuit that Musk likely loses.