by Elon Musk's social media company X, Formerly known as TwitterA lawsuit was filed on Monday against the liberal advocacy group Media Matters for America, which it says prepared the report to display advertisers' posts next to neo-Nazi and white nationalist posts to “drive advertisers off the platform and destroy X Corp.”
They were advertisers Escape X due to concern About their ads that appear next to pro-Nazi content – and Hate speech on the site In general – while the billionaire Musk caused tension Posts he liked Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theory.
IBM, NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast announced last week that they would stop advertising on X after Media Affairs reports said their ads appeared alongside Nazi-praising material. The Media Matters report also cited ads from Apple and Oracle that appeared next to anti-Semitic material on X, and the group said it found ads from Amazon, NBA Mexico, NBCUniversal and others next to white nationalist hashtags.
Other major companies, including Apple, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney and Paramount Global (CBS's parent company) said they were pulling advertising from the platform. It was a fresh setback as the platform tries to win back big brands and their advertising dollars, X's main source of revenue.
But San Francisco-based X says in its complaint, filed in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, that Media Matters “knowingly and maliciously” displayed ads next to hateful material “just as typical X users experience on the platform.”
X's complaint alleges that Media Matters “engineered algorithms that tailor the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of paid posts from X's largest advertisers adjacent to racist, inflammatory content, giving the false impression that These pairings are anything but real: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.”
The filing follows a post by Musk over the weekend promising: “Second trial opens Monday, X Corp files thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and everyone who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company.”
Media Matters, based in Washington, D.C., responded to the lawsuit Monday evening with its president, Angelo Carusone, saying, “This is a frivolous lawsuit designed to silence X's critics. Media Matters is behind its report. “
Carusone said in an earlier statement that Media Matters will continue to operate. “If he sues us, we will win,” he said.
In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Carusone said the group's findings showed that the security protections advertised by X failed to prevent ads from appearing next to malicious content.
“If you're looking for white nationalist content, there's a boom in ads. The system they say is in place doesn't work as such,” he said.
After X announced the lawsuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a statement saying his office would investigate the media for “potentially fraudulent activity,” echoing X's claim that the nonprofit manipulated its results.
They were advertisers Swim on X More than a year into Musk's tenure. Under his ownership, the site drastically reduced its workforce, broke up its trust and security advisory group and abolished the user verification system.
In July, Musk launched this site He paid 44 billion dollars had “negative cash flow” due to a “50% decline in advertising revenue plus a heavy debt load”.
Musk also sparked protests with his own posts. including last week In which he responded to a user who accused Jews of “anti-white…hate” he wrote: “You spoke the real truth.”
Musk has faced accusations of tolerating anti-Semitic messages on the platform since he bought it last year. X in his possession came back to the rules The Anti-Defamation League said in June it had removed “offensive hateful content” from the platform. account. According to ADL's analysis, 27% of online harassment in the first half of 2023 happened on X, and in 2022 this figure will be 21%.
X Executive Director Linda Iacarino, who joined the company In May, he said the company's “view has always been very clear that discrimination must stop by everyone across the board.”
“I think this is something we can and should all agree on,” he wrote on the platform last week.
