5 ms·

X Corp vs. Media Matters [pdf]

62 points by minimaxir 3y ago

minimaxir 3y ago
This is the lawsuit that Elon threatened (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1725771191644758037 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1725771191644758037), but am surprised he actually went through with it.
- dc396 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - minimaxir 3y ago
    Point 5 of the complaint is funny: > This November alone Media Matters released over twenty articles (and counting) disparaging both X Corp. and Elon Musk—a blatant smear campaign.
    - andrewxdiamond 3y ago
      Smear and slander are not free speech
      - bigmattystyles 3y ago
        You need actual malicious intent - what protects media matters is the same thing that protects most crazed AM broadcasters right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan
        dragontamer 3y ago
        IIRC, "Reckless" is enough for some cases of slander. I don't see how this passes the bar of "Reckless" however.
        rsynnott 3y ago
        Also, of course, if what was said is _true_, then intent becomes irrelevant.
      - mikeyouse 3y ago
        They actually are free speech, especially if someone considers themselves a "free speech absolutist". I keep hearing from these guys that the answer to speech you don't like is more speech. Musk owns one of the most prominent social media sites in the world - he could have front-paged an article explaining why Media Matters was wrong, the steps they took to 'contrive' their result, etc. etc. But no, after encouragement from some of the worst people in the country, he forum shopped a vexatious lawsuit to get the Federal government to punish a company who's speech Elon didn't like. Extremely revealing. Edit; Just to remind everyone - this most recent spat started when one user posted a super antisemitic screed about how the jews have been pushing white-hatred and that they essentially deserve what they get from the "hordes of minorities" -- to which Elon replied, "You have said the actual truth".
        emmelaich 3y ago
        [flagged]
        mikeyouse 3y ago
        Ah yes, famously measured scholar, "LibsofTikTok" weighing in on whether someone claiming Jews are importing "hordes of minorities" due to their "hatred of whites" is antisemtic or not. Meanwhile, antisemitic mass murders used the same rationale to justify their actions and tons of white supremacists celebrated Elon's comments. Very normal.
        emmelaich 3y ago
        Quote, directly please, the sentences that you are criticizing. Also, I have no idea what scholarly has got to do with it. She's an orthodox Jew, she's not going to encourage anti-semitism.
        mikeyouse 3y ago
        Anyone defending the great replacement bullshit at this point in history should do more reading and less posting, so good luck with that. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/elon-musks-disturbing-truth/676019/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/elon-musks...
      - rsynnott 3y ago
        In the US, and in most countries, it’s not slander if it’s true. For a public figure, the standard is quite high; you’re talking a malicious objective lie. And even _then_ it can be hard to prove, as Naughty Old Mr Car knows very well; remember the Thailand thing? So, “figure X is a stupid arsehole”: not slander. “Figure X has been sneaking into my kitchen and stealing the milk”: might be slander, depending.
  - emmelaich 3y ago
    No one is a free speech absolutist if you take absolutist in its literal sense.
- lepus 3y ago
  With his personal trajectory over the past several years I would have been surprised if he didn't.
  - minimaxir 3y ago
    There's a nonzero chance that just filing the lawsuit will make things worse (discovery, anti-SLAPP countersuit, advertisers seeing the chaos and leaving faster) than doing nothing at all.
    - davidw 3y ago
      Apparently the lawsuit was filed somewhere where the anti-SLAPP stuff doesn't work? https://www.threads.net/@kenpopehat/post/Cz41iIQL7I5 https://www.threads.net/@kenpopehat/post/Cz41iIQL7I5
      - minimaxir 3y ago
        That is apparently the case. Although one wonders if you can counter a bad venue with another bad venue.
    - evan_ 3y ago
      Certainly invites a Streisand Effect.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  As am I. The lawsuit doesn't doubt the legitimacy of Media Matters's experiment either, instead it just demeans it. Normally, the lawsuit template against slander is "The other guy was lying, they were malicious (or reckless) about it, and here's how it damaged us". In this case, they have multiple paragraphs describing Media Matter's procedure, proving that the screenshots are real. That's a very weak case to stand upon IMO. ------------ I think Media Matter's defense is simple. The screenshots were real and we have a reason to believe they're representative of Twitter's engagement process. How does this pass the bar of recklessness for Media Matters?
  - minimaxir 3y ago
    Media Matter's defense will most likely be filing for dismissal due to improper venue.
    - meepmorp 3y ago
      Could you elaborate on why? I'd appreciate more perspective on the matter.
      - dragontamer 3y ago
        Media Matters exists in Washington DC. Twitter exists in Nevada. This court filing is in Texas for some reason, which is really strange.
        mikeyouse 3y ago
        The ND of Texas is a famously right-wing Federal district - so litigants with marginal cases but causes sympathetic to conservatives "forum shop" to try to get in front of specific judges there. https://newrepublic.com/article/165730/northern-district-texas-judges-block-biden-policies https://newrepublic.com/article/165730/northern-district-tex...
      - minimaxir 3y ago
        I am not a lawyer, but the argument that Media Matters/Eric Hananoki has personal jurisdiction in Texas (Point 19) is...a stretch. The real reason Elon is suing in Texas is politically motivated: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1726767436618191177 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1726767436618191177 EDIT: Ken White says that a change of venue would be unlikely to succeed: https://www.threads.net/@matthewrigdon/post/Cz42BAtp_X7 https://www.threads.net/@matthewrigdon/post/Cz42BAtp_X7
- kstrauser 3y ago
  I'm not. It seems like an absolutely terrible idea with no hope of a good outcome, which is kind of his thing these days.
- adrr 3y ago
  Because he's all about freedom of speech. /s
MallocVoidstar 3y ago
X seems to be arguing that the report was defamatory because only Media Matters saw ads from 4 companies next to specific pro-Hitler posts, while not presenting an argument that no company has its ads run next to antisemitic content in general.
- xepriot 3y ago
  It seems to me that defamation here hinges on exactly what Media Matters said their little experiment shows about X: if they indicated that they were capturing the horrific state of the general user experience with respect to ads and offensive posts, then this was a really malicious lie. Otherwise, they were just using X in a strange manner, which is not defamatory in itself.
  - aw1621107 3y ago
    This appears to be the article that is being sued over: https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemit... The wording in dispute appears to be: > But that [the claim that "brands are now 'protected from the risk of being next to' potentially toxic content."] certainly isn’t the case for at least five major brands: We recently found ads for Apple, Bravo, Oracle, Xfinity, and IBM next to posts that tout Hitler and his Nazi Party on X. Here they are: <screenshots> Nothing is said about how common/rare this occurrence is nor whether anything specific needs to be done to observe such a result.
    - xepriot 3y ago
      Not in the article that article (written by the defendants) - the lawsuit, following the example of others, explains how they poked and prodded in very unnatural ways, trying to contrive a circumstance in which ads would be shown next to certain posts - and they did find such! X contends no actual users were or ever would be in this same circumstance, so no brand damage was actually done. It may hinge on exactly how strong the 'protection' is that Yaccarino alluded to is inferred to be - whether it's reasonable to infer she meant that content moderation under Musk was now perfected and 100% hateproof, at least with respect to ads.
zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
[flagged]
- acdha 3y ago
  Okay, you checked the “public display of tribal allegiance” box. Now that that’s out of the way, isn’t Musk the guy who talks about freedom of speech and how X won’t censor you? Do you really think trolling needs to be shut down by the government rather than answered by more speech?
  - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
    What do you mean by “public display of tribal allegiance” Who do you reckon I have allegiance to? I don't care about Elon Musk or Twitter. I just don't like Media Matters and David Brock has been a shady guy for decades.
- partiallypro 3y ago
  I don't really like them, but there's nothing here that they've done wrong in this instance. It's just objectively true that Twitter has turned into Gab-lite in many corners of the platform. I see Holocaust denial in my FY page all the time, from the far-right accounts and tankie accounts. I recently clicked into a comment section about a Jewish reporter and every comment was "Christ is King." That is something Nick Fuentes started. He's a neo-nazi. Elon also randomly replies to these people spewing this crap with quips like "interesting," etc which pumps it into everyone's feeds.
orwin 3y ago
That. That's exactly what made me dislike Elon Musk. I address this message to him: Stop whining. Please Elon, stop whining. People don't respect you as much? It doesn't matter, just, stop whining, and stop lying to justify your whining. I don't care that you've done mistakes. You're allowed to as long as you're accountable. Stop whining. This is becoming old. Organize meetings, art expositions, do some shit, play role-playing games, idk, but please, people do not really care. At most I'll read stuff like that for the drama, but really, live your life and stop whining.
- netsharc 3y ago
  I'm just here with popcorn, why try telling him anything, it's more fun to watch him destroy himself. As the Germans say, "Schadenfreude ist die schönste Freude" (Schadenfreude is the most beautiful happiness). Yeah it's not a good trait of mine, I'll admit. And as Napoleon didn't say, "Never interrupt your enemy while he's busy making a mistake" https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/06/never-interfere/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/06/never-interfere/
  - evan_ 3y ago
    unfortunately when the richest person in the world destroys himself, he can take a lot out with him, and it might take a while.
  - orwin 3y ago
    But the issue is that a part of the population look up to him, an especially young and easy to influence part. And he help make them whiners. He's not the only one, I've observed that guru often do the same thing (or take the complete opposite approach which isn't healthy either). I'm just tired of the US news having yet again whining as a defensive mechanism. It started with Hillary, then Trump, and now this. I'm just tired of US news I guess.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  He’s trying to appeal to the American far-right, now, and they appear to like it when Trump does it. I think this is actually a major cultural difference between the US and Europe that I wasn’t previously aware of; this sort of temper tantrum would, I think, almost universally be seen as a sign of weakness here. Frankly, I think this is the only reason countries with more plaintiff-friendly defamation laws, like the UK, haven’t been forced to reform them; it is such bad press for public figures to actually use them, particularly in nonsense cases like this, that they mostly don’t.
oldkinglog 3y ago
The lawsuit argues that X technically did not "place" advertisements next to anti-Semitic and racist material, because the ads shown are driven by user data, and Media Matters chose to follow racist accounts alongside well-known brands.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- aw1621107 3y ago
  That seems like a rather... interesting... argument to make. It feels like it weakens the efforts to convince advertisers that their ads are safe from showing up next to objectionable content - it's not our fault your ads show up next to content you don't want them to show up next to, it's all the user's fault!
  - pfannkuchen 3y ago
    Presumably the advertisers are concerned about being shown while someone is having a negative reaction to bad content, or about being associated with the bad content. If an individual user has specifically sought out the bad content though, they presumably don't themselves think it is bad, and so they don't have a negative reaction to it and also they don't have a negative view of an advertiser being associated with it. Is it still a problem for the advertiser? It's at least not a public perception problem anymore, more of an edge case of "do I want to encourage antisemites to shop at Target" kind of thing.
    - aw1621107 3y ago
      An interesting perspective. Not entirely sure that's the same line of reasoning advertisers use - they may be more risk-adverse and just go for a blanket "we don't want anything to do with <objectionable thing>" than "we don't want to show up next to <objectionable thing> unless the user likes it"
      - pfannkuchen 3y ago
mdasen 3y ago
I’m surprised that Musk is going through with this. It seems like this lawsuit would mean that Media Matters would be able to get access to lots of internal information via discovery.
- muglug 3y ago
  The point is to discourage others from doing the same. It's a classic SLAPP lawsuit. Some federal circuits (e.g. the 9th) have protections against SLAPP lawsuits. The 5th circuit (where this lawsuit was filed) does not, and the district judge is Reed O'Connor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor) who's infamous for rulings friendly to conservative causes.
  - kasdi 3y ago
    Isn’t this is a jury trial?
    - aw1621107 3y ago
      If it gets to that point, yes. There are multiple places where the lawsuit can end before a jury enters the picture (dismissal and summary judgement being more prominent examples), and in those cases it's the judge making the ruling. The insinuation here is that the venue was chosen to get a judge that is less likely to rule against X/Twitter in those earlier stages and make it more likely that later stages of the trial will be reached.
Imnimo 3y ago
So the complaint is that, in order to see if Twitter would place ads next to hate content, Media Matters first followed accounts that post hate and then scrolled down?
- olliej 3y ago
  No, the complaint is that media matters lied and slandered X by making up a story. MM isn't suing anyone, X is. Given that MM documented what they did, and plenty of others have confirmed that behavior, it seems hard to see how MM lied or slandered X.
r721 3y ago
>Inside Linda Yaccarino’s X all-hands after Elon Musk sued Media Matters: ‘By all means, put your heads together to bring new revenue into the company’ https://fortune.com/2023/11/20/inside-twitter-x-all-hands-after-media-matters-lawsuit-elon-musk-antisemitism-yaccarino/ https://fortune.com/2023/11/20/inside-twitter-x-all-hands-af... Archived: https://archive.is/tkT3c https://archive.is/tkT3c
davidw 3y ago
Not only that, but apparently several state attorney generals are interested in 'investigating' that outlet for saying things Elon didn't like. Using the power of the state to 'investigate' media you don't like is some real free speech absolutism.
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  This has to be the easiest possible way to mark & note activist anti-woke judicial systems ever. The judicial system galvanizing itself into action to defend a once $44B company for... being exposed as posting highly objectionable content next to those who asked & payed to not have that happen for their promotions? The system is defending what here? Confessed, it seemingly was somewhat extreme ends that Media Matters got up to to make this happen. But the site has been a haven for the worst shit lately, just horrible people who have taken over & loudly proudly usurped the supposedly left-biased site; this seems like a reasonable light that MM have shined, even if it took effort to get the most repugnant vile crap adjacent to sponsors content. MM tried hard to make advert & skum directly adjacent, but the character they revealed seems like what Twitter is & is increasingly overrun by. MM showed the face of modern Twitter accurately. Being mad over this ill light Twitter allowed on itself is silly but fine. It being legally actionable seems farcical & sad: a nasty bit of spite I don't think journalistic agencies should have to be afraid of. Having multiple various right wing states' attorney generals spring into action to defend the poor unfortunate $44b company that did bad things & got found seems like a horrible abuse of government power to beat up on the media for showing how it is.
  - sgnelson 3y ago
    (That's called fascism...)
- adrr 3y ago
  Texas attorney general is investigating a Washington DC based non profit for posting screenshots of a California based social network. That makes sense.
- rsynnott 3y ago
icehawk 3y ago
So Twitter is basically admitting this happens in a court document: > Media Matters therefore resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts. Good job, Elon.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  Hey everyone, Twitter is literally spying on your every move. If you file a lawsuit vs Twitter, they will scoop up that data and literally use it against you. The self-own is so real with this one.
  - CamelCaseName 3y ago
    Can you name a major company that wouldn't do this?
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      Whistleblower laws in general actually. Ex: If you file a complaint about your boss in good faith, your boss is normally not allowed to retaliate against you.
      - CamelCaseName 3y ago
        I didn't realize Media Matters was a Twitter employee.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - evan_ 3y ago
    Media Matters didn't sue Twitter. The lesson is, if you do something Twitter doesn't like, they'll scoop up your data and use it to sue you.
wilg 3y ago
I would say generally I think the idea of placing ads "next to" or "on" hateful content doesn't really get me upset. If its a list of people you follow with ads and you follow crazy people I don't think it's surprising that would happen. It's also unclear why advertisers should care, given that its personalized. Maybe you could argue if an account is saying hateful stuff, they shouldn't put any ads in their list of tweets if you go directly there? That said, the Media Matters article starts with quote from X CEO Yaccarino (https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/x-placing-ads-amazon-nba-mexico-nbcuniversal-and-others-next-content-white-nationalist https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/x-placing-ads-amazon-nb...) specifically saying they put controls in to prevent it. So it seems fair enough for a journalist to check if those controls work. Clearly, they don't in this case. Or the controls are for another case. I do think Media Matters could have been clearer about its methodology, since I agree with X that making an account that only follows hate accounts and seeing if it shows ads is not really what the article implies. I don't see how serving ads nearby to hateful content is more objectionable really than just having the hateful content in the first place. The connection to ads seems more like a tactic to try to force them into action, which is more activism than journalism. However, it's crazy to try to sue them for this. It's not illegal and it is mostly accurate! It's especially unacceptable that these virtue-signaling Republican AGs are trying to capitalize on it. Gross!
- davidw 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
    Then don't advertise on a website with user generated content
    - davidw 3y ago
      Most sites at least try to get rid of that stuff, instead of encouraging and promoting it.
    - etchalon 3y ago
JohnTHaller 3y ago
For context, the article with screenshots of nazi posts alongside ads for major advertisers: https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemit...
- brightball 3y ago
  I was curious and clicked on the link but I don’t understand how the “peace with Hitler” in the bottom left signs would be considered Nazi signs? Those seem more like…anti-Nazi signs warning that there were people who thought peace with Hitler was realistic? Unless I’m missing something.
  - etchalon 3y ago
    It could be read either way, I suppose. But the user which posted it, Karl Radl, is very much on the "Hitler was right" train of thought.
    - brightball 3y ago
      Yea, I have no context because I've never heard of this person.
user73acbdddac 3y ago
[flagged]
extheat 3y ago
Seems like a well grounded complaint. It’s obviously going to be politicized, given politics precipitated things from the start, but there is nothing wrong with letting these matters play out in a court. Remember that Elon has himself been the subject to defamation suits, and he’s won them all. If MM committed deception then likewise they will be held to account as the court determines right, there is justification for the lawsuit as X can prove they were damaged.
etchalon 3y ago
As best I can tell, advertisers started pausing ads after Musk commented on an anti-semitic tweet, agreeing with it. The MediaMatters article seemed to follow after.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  The media matters article was the day before that, b it, yeah, it’s fairly clear that advertisers’ decisions were driven more by Naughty Old Mr Car’s misdemeanours. Which makes the whole thing all the sillier.
etchalon 3y ago
It's nice to see Musk donating so much attention to Media Matters, which will fundraise off this and probably earn quite a few new supporters.
nvm0n2 3y ago
Starting to wonder if the non-profit corporate form is actually worth allowing at all. There's just so much manipulative or flat out crazy behavior coming from that sector in recent years, of the stuff that'd be slapped down by the courts or governments very fast if it were done by for-profit entities where people's guard is up. OpenAI, Wikimedia manipulating people into donating, the famously expensive WWF fundraising balls and now this. Media Matters will hopefully lose their lawsuit, be liable for X's losses and be destroyed. They've clearly been passing off heavily manipulated scenarios to advertisers as if they were representative of the average user's experience, for the sole and explicit purpose of waging left wing ideological war against the only tech company willing to defy them, which is a behavior harmful for society overall especially as it's an attack on a more or less public square. You don't see commercial competitors engaging in such manipulative and aggressive attacks like that much, if at all, probably because they are run by rationally self-interested people who don't want to wreck their organization by starting legal fights over ideology. Unfortunately even if X does win presumably Media Matters has little money to make amends, and there are hundreds of similar leftist NGOs dotted across the landscape using aggressive manipulation to police what people are allowed to say, many of which are just very thin proxies for the US government (see the Twitter Files for examples of that). This problem isn't specific to X, pretty much any organization that isn't explicitly leftist will find that its advertisers are all being constantly harassed and libelled by NGO activists. The UK's attempt at a conservative TV news channel constantly faces this problem as well, as do any conservative news websites or blogs. A real fix for this type of behavior will probably require law changes to strip the corporate veil from non-profit board members, such that they become personally liable for legal costs of the non-profit itself. Limited liability is useful to grant to for-profit companies because they often take actual and serious risks with large amounts of capital, so there needs to be some shield against that risk becoming of uncontrollable size. But the NGO sector doesn't risk capital to build anything productive. One of the very few that did was OpenAI and we're seeing how that plays out right now.
itbeho 3y ago
I don't see how Musk/X will be successful with this unless in discovery it's revealed that Media Matters produced some of the hateful content through sock puppet accounts.
norwalkbear 3y ago
It's hard to take the anti-elon people on hackernews seriously anymore. They said twitter was going to fail over nearly everything, and I believed them until I lost money on the betting markets. It's clear Elon is not dumb or incompetent, I wonder what his real move is here?

62 points by minimaxir 3y ago

This is the lawsuit that Elon threatened (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1725771191644758037 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1725771191644758037), but am surprised he actually went through with it.

dc396 3y ago
[flagged]
- minimaxir 3y ago
  Point 5 of the complaint is funny: > This November alone Media Matters released over twenty articles (and counting) disparaging both X Corp. and Elon Musk—a blatant smear campaign.
  - andrewxdiamond 3y ago
    Smear and slander are not free speech
    - bigmattystyles 3y ago
      You need actual malicious intent - what protects media matters is the same thing that protects most crazed AM broadcasters right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan
      - dragontamer 3y ago
        IIRC, "Reckless" is enough for some cases of slander. I don't see how this passes the bar of "Reckless" however.
        rsynnott 3y ago
        Also, of course, if what was said is _true_, then intent becomes irrelevant.
    - mikeyouse 3y ago
      They actually are free speech, especially if someone considers themselves a "free speech absolutist". I keep hearing from these guys that the answer to speech you don't like is more speech. Musk owns one of the most prominent social media sites in the world - he could have front-paged an article explaining why Media Matters was wrong, the steps they took to 'contrive' their result, etc. etc. But no, after encouragement from some of the worst people in the country, he forum shopped a vexatious lawsuit to get the Federal government to punish a company who's speech Elon didn't like. Extremely revealing. Edit; Just to remind everyone - this most recent spat started when one user posted a super antisemitic screed about how the jews have been pushing white-hatred and that they essentially deserve what they get from the "hordes of minorities" -- to which Elon replied, "You have said the actual truth".
      - emmelaich 3y ago
        [flagged]
        mikeyouse 3y ago
        Ah yes, famously measured scholar, "LibsofTikTok" weighing in on whether someone claiming Jews are importing "hordes of minorities" due to their "hatred of whites" is antisemtic or not. Meanwhile, antisemitic mass murders used the same rationale to justify their actions and tons of white supremacists celebrated Elon's comments. Very normal.
        emmelaich 3y ago
        Quote, directly please, the sentences that you are criticizing. Also, I have no idea what scholarly has got to do with it. She's an orthodox Jew, she's not going to encourage anti-semitism.
        mikeyouse 3y ago
        Anyone defending the great replacement bullshit at this point in history should do more reading and less posting, so good luck with that. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/elon-musks-disturbing-truth/676019/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/elon-musks...
    - rsynnott 3y ago
      In the US, and in most countries, it’s not slander if it’s true. For a public figure, the standard is quite high; you’re talking a malicious objective lie. And even _then_ it can be hard to prove, as Naughty Old Mr Car knows very well; remember the Thailand thing? So, “figure X is a stupid arsehole”: not slander. “Figure X has been sneaking into my kitchen and stealing the milk”: might be slander, depending.
- emmelaich 3y ago
  No one is a free speech absolutist if you take absolutist in its literal sense.
lepus 3y ago
With his personal trajectory over the past several years I would have been surprised if he didn't.
- minimaxir 3y ago
  There's a nonzero chance that just filing the lawsuit will make things worse (discovery, anti-SLAPP countersuit, advertisers seeing the chaos and leaving faster) than doing nothing at all.
  - davidw 3y ago
    Apparently the lawsuit was filed somewhere where the anti-SLAPP stuff doesn't work? https://www.threads.net/@kenpopehat/post/Cz41iIQL7I5 https://www.threads.net/@kenpopehat/post/Cz41iIQL7I5
    - minimaxir 3y ago
      That is apparently the case. Although one wonders if you can counter a bad venue with another bad venue.
  - evan_ 3y ago
    Certainly invites a Streisand Effect.
dragontamer 3y ago
As am I. The lawsuit doesn't doubt the legitimacy of Media Matters's experiment either, instead it just demeans it. Normally, the lawsuit template against slander is "The other guy was lying, they were malicious (or reckless) about it, and here's how it damaged us". In this case, they have multiple paragraphs describing Media Matter's procedure, proving that the screenshots are real. That's a very weak case to stand upon IMO. ------------ I think Media Matter's defense is simple. The screenshots were real and we have a reason to believe they're representative of Twitter's engagement process. How does this pass the bar of recklessness for Media Matters?
- minimaxir 3y ago
  Media Matter's defense will most likely be filing for dismissal due to improper venue.
  - meepmorp 3y ago
    Could you elaborate on why? I'd appreciate more perspective on the matter.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      Media Matters exists in Washington DC. Twitter exists in Nevada. This court filing is in Texas for some reason, which is really strange.
      - mikeyouse 3y ago
        The ND of Texas is a famously right-wing Federal district - so litigants with marginal cases but causes sympathetic to conservatives "forum shop" to try to get in front of specific judges there. https://newrepublic.com/article/165730/northern-district-texas-judges-block-biden-policies https://newrepublic.com/article/165730/northern-district-tex...
    - minimaxir 3y ago
      I am not a lawyer, but the argument that Media Matters/Eric Hananoki has personal jurisdiction in Texas (Point 19) is...a stretch. The real reason Elon is suing in Texas is politically motivated: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1726767436618191177 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1726767436618191177 EDIT: Ken White says that a change of venue would be unlikely to succeed: https://www.threads.net/@matthewrigdon/post/Cz42BAtp_X7 https://www.threads.net/@matthewrigdon/post/Cz42BAtp_X7
kstrauser 3y ago
I'm not. It seems like an absolutely terrible idea with no hope of a good outcome, which is kind of his thing these days.
adrr 3y ago
Because he's all about freedom of speech. /s

MallocVoidstar 3y ago

X seems to be arguing that the report was defamatory because only Media Matters saw ads from 4 companies next to specific pro-Hitler posts, while not presenting an argument that no company has its ads run next to antisemitic content in general.

xepriot 3y ago
It seems to me that defamation here hinges on exactly what Media Matters said their little experiment shows about X: if they indicated that they were capturing the horrific state of the general user experience with respect to ads and offensive posts, then this was a really malicious lie. Otherwise, they were just using X in a strange manner, which is not defamatory in itself.
- aw1621107 3y ago
  This appears to be the article that is being sued over: https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemit... The wording in dispute appears to be: > But that [the claim that "brands are now 'protected from the risk of being next to' potentially toxic content."] certainly isn’t the case for at least five major brands: We recently found ads for Apple, Bravo, Oracle, Xfinity, and IBM next to posts that tout Hitler and his Nazi Party on X. Here they are: <screenshots> Nothing is said about how common/rare this occurrence is nor whether anything specific needs to be done to observe such a result.
  - xepriot 3y ago
    Not in the article that article (written by the defendants) - the lawsuit, following the example of others, explains how they poked and prodded in very unnatural ways, trying to contrive a circumstance in which ads would be shown next to certain posts - and they did find such! X contends no actual users were or ever would be in this same circumstance, so no brand damage was actually done. It may hinge on exactly how strong the 'protection' is that Yaccarino alluded to is inferred to be - whether it's reasonable to infer she meant that content moderation under Musk was now perfected and 100% hateproof, at least with respect to ads.

zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago

[flagged]

acdha 3y ago
Okay, you checked the “public display of tribal allegiance” box. Now that that’s out of the way, isn’t Musk the guy who talks about freedom of speech and how X won’t censor you? Do you really think trolling needs to be shut down by the government rather than answered by more speech?
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
  What do you mean by “public display of tribal allegiance” Who do you reckon I have allegiance to? I don't care about Elon Musk or Twitter. I just don't like Media Matters and David Brock has been a shady guy for decades.
partiallypro 3y ago
I don't really like them, but there's nothing here that they've done wrong in this instance. It's just objectively true that Twitter has turned into Gab-lite in many corners of the platform. I see Holocaust denial in my FY page all the time, from the far-right accounts and tankie accounts. I recently clicked into a comment section about a Jewish reporter and every comment was "Christ is King." That is something Nick Fuentes started. He's a neo-nazi. Elon also randomly replies to these people spewing this crap with quips like "interesting," etc which pumps it into everyone's feeds.

orwin 3y ago

That. That's exactly what made me dislike Elon Musk. I address this message to him: Stop whining. Please Elon, stop whining. People don't respect you as much? It doesn't matter, just, stop whining, and stop lying to justify your whining. I don't care that you've done mistakes. You're allowed to as long as you're accountable. Stop whining. This is becoming old. Organize meetings, art expositions, do some shit, play role-playing games, idk, but please, people do not really care. At most I'll read stuff like that for the drama, but really, live your life and stop whining.

netsharc 3y ago
I'm just here with popcorn, why try telling him anything, it's more fun to watch him destroy himself. As the Germans say, "Schadenfreude ist die schönste Freude" (Schadenfreude is the most beautiful happiness). Yeah it's not a good trait of mine, I'll admit. And as Napoleon didn't say, "Never interrupt your enemy while he's busy making a mistake" https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/06/never-interfere/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/06/never-interfere/
- evan_ 3y ago
  unfortunately when the richest person in the world destroys himself, he can take a lot out with him, and it might take a while.
- orwin 3y ago
  But the issue is that a part of the population look up to him, an especially young and easy to influence part. And he help make them whiners. He's not the only one, I've observed that guru often do the same thing (or take the complete opposite approach which isn't healthy either). I'm just tired of the US news having yet again whining as a defensive mechanism. It started with Hillary, then Trump, and now this. I'm just tired of US news I guess.
rsynnott 3y ago
He’s trying to appeal to the American far-right, now, and they appear to like it when Trump does it. I think this is actually a major cultural difference between the US and Europe that I wasn’t previously aware of; this sort of temper tantrum would, I think, almost universally be seen as a sign of weakness here. Frankly, I think this is the only reason countries with more plaintiff-friendly defamation laws, like the UK, haven’t been forced to reform them; it is such bad press for public figures to actually use them, particularly in nonsense cases like this, that they mostly don’t.

oldkinglog 3y ago

The lawsuit argues that X technically did not "place" advertisements next to anti-Semitic and racist material, because the ads shown are driven by user data, and Media Matters chose to follow racist accounts alongside well-known brands.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
aw1621107 3y ago
That seems like a rather... interesting... argument to make. It feels like it weakens the efforts to convince advertisers that their ads are safe from showing up next to objectionable content - it's not our fault your ads show up next to content you don't want them to show up next to, it's all the user's fault!
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  Presumably the advertisers are concerned about being shown while someone is having a negative reaction to bad content, or about being associated with the bad content. If an individual user has specifically sought out the bad content though, they presumably don't themselves think it is bad, and so they don't have a negative reaction to it and also they don't have a negative view of an advertiser being associated with it. Is it still a problem for the advertiser? It's at least not a public perception problem anymore, more of an edge case of "do I want to encourage antisemites to shop at Target" kind of thing.
  - aw1621107 3y ago
    An interesting perspective. Not entirely sure that's the same line of reasoning advertisers use - they may be more risk-adverse and just go for a blanket "we don't want anything to do with <objectionable thing>" than "we don't want to show up next to <objectionable thing> unless the user likes it"
    - pfannkuchen 3y ago

mdasen 3y ago

I’m surprised that Musk is going through with this. It seems like this lawsuit would mean that Media Matters would be able to get access to lots of internal information via discovery.

muglug 3y ago
The point is to discourage others from doing the same. It's a classic SLAPP lawsuit. Some federal circuits (e.g. the 9th) have protections against SLAPP lawsuits. The 5th circuit (where this lawsuit was filed) does not, and the district judge is Reed O'Connor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor) who's infamous for rulings friendly to conservative causes.
- kasdi 3y ago
  Isn’t this is a jury trial?
  - aw1621107 3y ago
    If it gets to that point, yes. There are multiple places where the lawsuit can end before a jury enters the picture (dismissal and summary judgement being more prominent examples), and in those cases it's the judge making the ruling. The insinuation here is that the venue was chosen to get a judge that is less likely to rule against X/Twitter in those earlier stages and make it more likely that later stages of the trial will be reached.

Imnimo 3y ago

So the complaint is that, in order to see if Twitter would place ads next to hate content, Media Matters first followed accounts that post hate and then scrolled down?

olliej 3y ago
No, the complaint is that media matters lied and slandered X by making up a story. MM isn't suing anyone, X is. Given that MM documented what they did, and plenty of others have confirmed that behavior, it seems hard to see how MM lied or slandered X.

r721 3y ago

>Inside Linda Yaccarino’s X all-hands after Elon Musk sued Media Matters: ‘By all means, put your heads together to bring new revenue into the company’ https://fortune.com/2023/11/20/inside-twitter-x-all-hands-after-media-matters-lawsuit-elon-musk-antisemitism-yaccarino/ https://fortune.com/2023/11/20/inside-twitter-x-all-hands-af... Archived: https://archive.is/tkT3c https://archive.is/tkT3c

davidw 3y ago

Not only that, but apparently several state attorney generals are interested in 'investigating' that outlet for saying things Elon didn't like. Using the power of the state to 'investigate' media you don't like is some real free speech absolutism.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
This has to be the easiest possible way to mark & note activist anti-woke judicial systems ever. The judicial system galvanizing itself into action to defend a once $44B company for... being exposed as posting highly objectionable content next to those who asked & payed to not have that happen for their promotions? The system is defending what here? Confessed, it seemingly was somewhat extreme ends that Media Matters got up to to make this happen. But the site has been a haven for the worst shit lately, just horrible people who have taken over & loudly proudly usurped the supposedly left-biased site; this seems like a reasonable light that MM have shined, even if it took effort to get the most repugnant vile crap adjacent to sponsors content. MM tried hard to make advert & skum directly adjacent, but the character they revealed seems like what Twitter is & is increasingly overrun by. MM showed the face of modern Twitter accurately. Being mad over this ill light Twitter allowed on itself is silly but fine. It being legally actionable seems farcical & sad: a nasty bit of spite I don't think journalistic agencies should have to be afraid of. Having multiple various right wing states' attorney generals spring into action to defend the poor unfortunate $44b company that did bad things & got found seems like a horrible abuse of government power to beat up on the media for showing how it is.
- sgnelson 3y ago
  (That's called fascism...)
adrr 3y ago
Texas attorney general is investigating a Washington DC based non profit for posting screenshots of a California based social network. That makes sense.
rsynnott 3y ago

icehawk 3y ago

So Twitter is basically admitting this happens in a court document: > Media Matters therefore resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts. Good job, Elon.

dragontamer 3y ago
Hey everyone, Twitter is literally spying on your every move. If you file a lawsuit vs Twitter, they will scoop up that data and literally use it against you. The self-own is so real with this one.
- CamelCaseName 3y ago
  Can you name a major company that wouldn't do this?
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    Whistleblower laws in general actually. Ex: If you file a complaint about your boss in good faith, your boss is normally not allowed to retaliate against you.
    - CamelCaseName 3y ago
      I didn't realize Media Matters was a Twitter employee.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- evan_ 3y ago
  Media Matters didn't sue Twitter. The lesson is, if you do something Twitter doesn't like, they'll scoop up your data and use it to sue you.

wilg 3y ago

I would say generally I think the idea of placing ads "next to" or "on" hateful content doesn't really get me upset. If its a list of people you follow with ads and you follow crazy people I don't think it's surprising that would happen. It's also unclear why advertisers should care, given that its personalized. Maybe you could argue if an account is saying hateful stuff, they shouldn't put any ads in their list of tweets if you go directly there? That said, the Media Matters article starts with quote from X CEO Yaccarino (https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/x-placing-ads-amazon-nba-mexico-nbcuniversal-and-others-next-content-white-nationalist https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/x-placing-ads-amazon-nb...) specifically saying they put controls in to prevent it. So it seems fair enough for a journalist to check if those controls work. Clearly, they don't in this case. Or the controls are for another case. I do think Media Matters could have been clearer about its methodology, since I agree with X that making an account that only follows hate accounts and seeing if it shows ads is not really what the article implies. I don't see how serving ads nearby to hateful content is more objectionable really than just having the hateful content in the first place. The connection to ads seems more like a tactic to try to force them into action, which is more activism than journalism. However, it's crazy to try to sue them for this. It's not illegal and it is mostly accurate! It's especially unacceptable that these virtue-signaling Republican AGs are trying to capitalize on it. Gross!

davidw 3y ago
[flagged]
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
  Then don't advertise on a website with user generated content
  - davidw 3y ago
    Most sites at least try to get rid of that stuff, instead of encouraging and promoting it.
  - etchalon 3y ago

JohnTHaller 3y ago

For context, the article with screenshots of nazi posts alongside ads for major advertisers: https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemit...

brightball 3y ago
I was curious and clicked on the link but I don’t understand how the “peace with Hitler” in the bottom left signs would be considered Nazi signs? Those seem more like…anti-Nazi signs warning that there were people who thought peace with Hitler was realistic? Unless I’m missing something.
- etchalon 3y ago
  It could be read either way, I suppose. But the user which posted it, Karl Radl, is very much on the "Hitler was right" train of thought.
  - brightball 3y ago
    Yea, I have no context because I've never heard of this person.

user73acbdddac 3y ago

[flagged]

extheat 3y ago

Seems like a well grounded complaint. It’s obviously going to be politicized, given politics precipitated things from the start, but there is nothing wrong with letting these matters play out in a court. Remember that Elon has himself been the subject to defamation suits, and he’s won them all. If MM committed deception then likewise they will be held to account as the court determines right, there is justification for the lawsuit as X can prove they were damaged.

etchalon 3y ago

As best I can tell, advertisers started pausing ads after Musk commented on an anti-semitic tweet, agreeing with it. The MediaMatters article seemed to follow after.

rsynnott 3y ago
The media matters article was the day before that, b it, yeah, it’s fairly clear that advertisers’ decisions were driven more by Naughty Old Mr Car’s misdemeanours. Which makes the whole thing all the sillier.

etchalon 3y ago

It's nice to see Musk donating so much attention to Media Matters, which will fundraise off this and probably earn quite a few new supporters.

nvm0n2 3y ago

Starting to wonder if the non-profit corporate form is actually worth allowing at all. There's just so much manipulative or flat out crazy behavior coming from that sector in recent years, of the stuff that'd be slapped down by the courts or governments very fast if it were done by for-profit entities where people's guard is up. OpenAI, Wikimedia manipulating people into donating, the famously expensive WWF fundraising balls and now this. Media Matters will hopefully lose their lawsuit, be liable for X's losses and be destroyed. They've clearly been passing off heavily manipulated scenarios to advertisers as if they were representative of the average user's experience, for the sole and explicit purpose of waging left wing ideological war against the only tech company willing to defy them, which is a behavior harmful for society overall especially as it's an attack on a more or less public square. You don't see commercial competitors engaging in such manipulative and aggressive attacks like that much, if at all, probably because they are run by rationally self-interested people who don't want to wreck their organization by starting legal fights over ideology. Unfortunately even if X does win presumably Media Matters has little money to make amends, and there are hundreds of similar leftist NGOs dotted across the landscape using aggressive manipulation to police what people are allowed to say, many of which are just very thin proxies for the US government (see the Twitter Files for examples of that). This problem isn't specific to X, pretty much any organization that isn't explicitly leftist will find that its advertisers are all being constantly harassed and libelled by NGO activists. The UK's attempt at a conservative TV news channel constantly faces this problem as well, as do any conservative news websites or blogs. A real fix for this type of behavior will probably require law changes to strip the corporate veil from non-profit board members, such that they become personally liable for legal costs of the non-profit itself. Limited liability is useful to grant to for-profit companies because they often take actual and serious risks with large amounts of capital, so there needs to be some shield against that risk becoming of uncontrollable size. But the NGO sector doesn't risk capital to build anything productive. One of the very few that did was OpenAI and we're seeing how that plays out right now.

itbeho 3y ago

I don't see how Musk/X will be successful with this unless in discovery it's revealed that Media Matters produced some of the hateful content through sock puppet accounts.

norwalkbear 3y ago

It's hard to take the anti-elon people on hackernews seriously anymore. They said twitter was going to fail over nearly everything, and I believed them until I lost money on the betting markets. It's clear Elon is not dumb or incompetent, I wonder what his real move is here?