A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by the company formerly known as Twitter, which sued a hate speech monitoring group that it blamed for losing millions of dollars in advertising.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the lawsuit was intended to punish the Center for Countering Digital Hate for its criticism of X, and thus violated California's ban on lawsuits designed to suppress free speech.
Following his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, Elon Musk welcomed back several users who had been suspended for sending tweets that violated its terms of service, and reduced the number of people who enforced those terms and moderated conversations on the platform. But his support for free speech on the X had its limits; For example, X has sometimes blocked people from posting links to their work on other social networks.
X filed a lawsuit last July against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, after the organization documented the emergence of hate speech, misinformation and other trends around user accounts on the platform during Musk's tenure.
Major advertisers like Disney, IBM, and Apple pulled their content after Musk endorsed an anti-Semitic tweet; He then expressed his frustration in a series of online posts about the loss of advertisers since the company was acquired. The social media giant claimed it lost “at least tens of millions of dollars” in advertising in part because of the center's reporting, according to the company's lawsuit.
X Corp sued the nonprofit for breach of contract, alleging that the center's researchers abused their access to user data and mischaracterized information in their reports, articles and calls for companies to take their advertising dollars elsewhere. X Corp compared the center to an “activist organization.”[] K disguises himself [a] Research Agency[y]”.
In November, the center's lawyers moved to dismiss X Corp's lawsuit under a California law that addresses “strategic lawsuits against public engagement” — that is, lawsuits aimed at censoring, intimidating and silencing critics.
On Monday, Breyer granted that anti-SLAPP motion, denied X Corp's motion to redefend its case and granted and dismissed the Center's request to strike. Breyer also granted a motion to dismiss X Corp's claims against the European Climate Foundation.
“Sometimes it is unclear what motivates a lawsuit, and only by reading between the lines of the complaint can one attempt to guess the plaintiff's true purpose,” Breyer said in a 52-page order filed Monday. “At other times, the complaint is so shamelessly and loudly about one thing that there can be no error on that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the defendants for their speech.”
Breyer went on to write that X Corp. The case was brought “in order to punish CCDH for CCDH posts that criticized X Corp. — and perhaps to dissuade others who might wish to engage in such criticism.”
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“It is clear to the court that Company
An email sent to X Corp's attorney seeking comment on the court's ruling was not received. Musk did not immediately respond to the court's ruling on X.
In a statement, Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said the group's goal has always been “to warn the world about corporate failures that undermine human rights and civil liberties.”
“Today the courts affirmed our fundamental right to research, speak, defend, and hold social media companies accountable for the decisions they make behind closed doors that affect our children, our democracy, and basic human rights and civil liberties.” Ahmed said.
“Today’s decision proves that even the richest man in the world cannot bend the rule of law to his will,” said attorney Roberta Kaplan, who represented the center.
“We live in an age of bullies, and social media is what gives them the power they have today,” added Kaplan, who recently represented E. Jean Carroll in her successful defamation lawsuit against former President Trump. “It takes great courage to stand up to these bullies; It takes an organization like the Center to Counter Digital Hate.
