After a devastating advertiser exodus last week involving some of the world’s biggest media companies, X owner Elon Musk is suing progressive watchdog group Media Matters over its analysis highlighting anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi content on X – a report that appears to have played a significant role in the massive and highly damaging brand revolt.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday, accuses Media Matters of distorting the likelihood of ads appearing next to extremist content on X and claims that the group’s testing methodology is not representative of how real users experience the site.
“Media Matters knowingly and maliciously created side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform next to neo-Nazi and white nationalist fringe content, and then portrayed these created images as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform,” said the lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. “Media Matters designed both these images and the resulting media strategy to drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.”
The lawsuit also names Media Matters and Eric Hananoki, its senior investigative reporter, as defendants. It seeks a court order forcing Media Matters to remove its analysis from its website and accuses Media Matters of interfering with X’s contracts with advertisers, disrupting its economic relationships and unlawfully disparaging X.
In a statement on Monday night, Media Matters president Angelo Carusone vowed to defend the group against the lawsuit.
“This is a frivolous lawsuit designed to silence X’s critics,” Carusone said. “Media Matters stands behind its reporting and looks forward to winning in court.”
On Monday night, X CEO Linda Yaccarino came to the social media site’s defence.
“If you know me, you know I’m committed to truth and fairness,” Yaccarino wrote. “Here’s the truth. Not a single authentic user on X saw the IBM, Comcast, or Oracle ads next to the content in the Media Matters article.”
After the lawsuit was filed, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton doubled down, announcing that he would investigate Media Matters to determine whether its study of content on X could constitute “potential fraudulent activity” under Texas law. He also called the group a “radical left-wing organisation” that “wants nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square”.
A number of major companies stopped advertising on the platform after Musk endorsed the anti-Semitic claim that Jewish communities promote “hate against whites”.
Musk had teased the lawsuit on Saturday after those major brands, including Disney, Paramount and CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, stopped advertising on X. Musk threatened a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters and “ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,” including, he said in a follow-up post, “their board, their donors, their dark money network, all of them…”
In previewing X’s argument, Musk did not appear to dispute the findings of Media Matters’ analysis, instead taking aim at the group for creating a test account and allegedly refreshing the account until X’s ad systems served an ad for a major brand alongside extremist content. The result generated by the test would almost never happen in the real world, Musk’s complaint alleges.
Legal experts on technology and the First Amendment largely dismissed X’s lawsuit Monday as weak and opportunistic, filed in a court that Musk likely believes will side with him.
“It’s one of those lawsuits filed more for symbolism than substance – as evidenced by how empty the allegations really are and where Musk chose to file, choosing the ultra-conservative Northern District of Texas despite it having no logical connection to the dispute,” said Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas and a CNN legal analyst. “The choice of venue can best be described as an attempt to bolster a weak claim on the merits with a bench that is more likely to be sympathetic to even weak claims.”
“This reads to me like a press release, not a court filing,” said Joan Donovan, a professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University. “X admits that the ads were shown next to hateful content, but argues that it was ‘rare’. This is the same strategy used by advertisers that led YouTube to demonetize political content in 2017.”
Ken White, a First Amendment lawyer and criminal defence attorney based in Los Angeles, said the decision to file in Texas may have been intended to circumvent laws passed by California, the District of Columbia and dozens of states that prohibit frivolous lawsuits meant to stifle public criticism.
“X filed this in federal court in Texas to avoid the application of an anti-SLAPP statute,” White said of X’s alternative BlueSky, using the acronym for so-called “strategic lawsuits against public participation”.
In the federal court of appeals that oversees Texas, anti-SLAPP statutes do not apply, White added.
“X’s purpose is to harass, abuse, and maximise the cost of litigation, and anti-SLAPP statutes interfere with that purpose,” he wrote.
Monday’s case was assigned to District Judge Mark Pittman, a Donald Trump appointee who has been at the centre of some of the nation’s biggest legal battles. Last November, Pittman blocked President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt, one of two such decisions to reach the Supreme Court.
Last August, Pittman ruled that a Texas law banning 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying handguns in public was unconstitutional and inconsistent with the Second Amendment and US history.
