A federal judge in California on Monday dismissed X’s lawsuit against a nonprofit that studies online hate speech, ruling that the social media company’s case was designed to punish researchers for speaking freely about the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.
X sued the Center to Fight Digital Hate in July in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California after the organization published several articles claiming its researchers had discovered an increase in hate speech on the platform after the Elon acquisition Mask X said the group’s investigation is hurting his business, scaring off advertisers, costing him millions of dollars.
But the court ruled that X’s lawsuit was an attempt to punish the group for speaking negatively about the company and that its work is protected by law.
“Sometimes it is unclear what gives rise to a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose,” Judge Charles R. Breyer wrote in a ruling Monday. “At other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about a thing that that purpose cannot be mistaken.” He added, “this case is about punishing defendants for their speech.”
The decision is a blow to Mr Musk, who has used legal threats to fight critics of his social media platform. In November, he sued the advocacy group Media Matters for America after it published a report showing ads on X appearing next to neo-Nazi posts.
“We are creating costs for lies and hate,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center to Combat Digital Hate. “The courts today affirmed our fundamental right to investigate, speak out, advocate and hold social media companies accountable for decisions they make behind closed doors that affect our children, our democracy and fundamental human rights and policies freedoms”.
X said in a statement that it plans to appeal the decision and will continue to take legal action against the agency for “illegally obtaining platform data to create misleading research.”
The case was one of several legal disputes currently involving Mr. Musk and X. The company is suing a law firm that represented it before Mr. Musk owned it, alleging that it collected unreasonably high fees. Former Twitter executives are also suing the company, alleging that Mr. Musk unreasonably withheld severance pay.
In addition, Mr. Musk is suing OpenAI, the artificial intelligence lab he co-founded, claiming the company violated its principles. (The New York Times is also suing OpenAI and Microsoft for misusing its copyrighted material.)
