X Threatens Legal Action Against Nonprofit

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Facts

  • On July 20, X Corp., formerly Twitter, sent a letter to the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), an organization that researches digital hate speech and misinformation, accusing the group of making "baseless claims" that are driving away advertisers.1
  • Since Elon Musk’s takeover last year, the CCDH has published work claiming hate speech on the social media platform has risen. In its most recent report, it claimed that X fails to take action against 99% of hate speech posted by X Blue subscribers.2
  • In the letter, X accused the CCDH of making a "series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically."3
  • The letter also threatened the CCDH with legal action, stating that X is considering whether the claims made are actionable under the Lanham Act (US legislation governing trademark law).3
  • The letter also claimed X has "reason to believe" the report was funded by groups with an "ulterior agenda" against the company, like government entities and other corporations. CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed refuted this, saying that his organization doesn't "accept any funding from tech companies, governments, or their affiliates."4
  • This comes as Musk aims to rebrand the platform which he purchased for $44B in October. Advertising revenue has declined roughly 50%, and X's recent legal letter cited a Times article saying that advertisers had left the platform after Musk's purchase and "content policy changes" led to a rise in "hateful, violent and inaccurate posts."5

Sources: 1NBC, 2Verge, 3Guardian, 4Forbes, and 5Daily Mail.

Narratives

  • Left narrative, as provided by Mashable. While may Musk claim to be "a free speech absolutist" who has advocated for far-right actors and conspiracy theorists to be able to use his platform, he has had a dodgy record of silencing those critical of him. This is just one more example of Musk using threats of legal action to silence valid criticisms against him and his companies. Instead of attacking the CCDH, Musk should attack the disturbing hate speech on his platform.
  • Right narrative, as provided by Breitbart. The report claiming supposed hate speech on X by Twitter Blue subscribers is nothing but a series of inflammatory, misleading, and unsupported claims. The article claiming that "Twitter fails to act on 99% of Twitter Blue accounts tweeting hate" failed to explain its methodology for its selection or testing of tweets and did not explain why the 100 tweets selected were a quality representation of the platform's content moderation policies. These false and misleading claims are unacceptable and deserve legal action.