Elon Musk’s X Takes Legal Action Against Media Nonprofit, Denying Anti-Semitism Claims
On Monday, Elon Musk’s X Corp filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Media Matters, accusing it of driving advertisers away from the platform, formerly known as Twitter, by depicting it as laden with anti-Semitic content.
In a lawsuit filed in a US federal court in Texas, X accuses the organization of “tricking the algorithm into thinking Media Matters wanted to view both hateful content and content from large advertisers.”
High-profile brands such as Apple, Comcast, NBCUniversal, and IBM paused advertising on X last week after Media Matters reported finding ads displayed with pro-Nazi content. The advertising exodus coincided with Musk endorsing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
In response to an AFP inquiry, Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, dismissed the lawsuit as a “frivolous attempt to bully X’s critics into silence” and affirmed Media Matters’ commitment to its reporting.
The White House condemned Musk, the world’s richest person, for the “abhorrent promotion” of anti-Semitism. This condemnation followed Musk’s reply to an anti-Semitic post on X with the words: “You have said the actual truth.” The post is widely interpreted as referencing a false conspiracy theory among White supremacists about Jews having a secret plan to alter US demographics.
The lawsuit filed on Monday doesn’t mention Musk’s endorsement of the conspiracy theory. Instead, it attributes recent advertising challenges on X to Media Matters. The lawsuit claims that Media Matters “knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical X users experience.”
X accuses Media Matters of misleading its algorithm by following accounts known for extreme, fringe content alongside big-name brands. This, according to X, created a feed “precision-designed” to produce the kind of side-by-side ad and content pairings that alienated X advertisers.
X is seeking an order from the court to make Media Matters pay unspecified cash damages and to take down the report. In the year since taking over Twitter and rebranding it as X, Musk has significantly reduced content moderation, reinstated accounts of previously banned extremists, and allowed users to purchase account verification to profit from viral but often inaccurate posts.
An X executive informed AFP that they conducted a “sweep” of accounts identified by Media Matters, preventing them from making money from ads. The posts themselves will be labeled “sensitive media,” according to the executive.
