A nonprofit tracks hate speech online. Elon Musk’s X is suing them.

Elon Musk’s social media company is threatening to sue a nonprofit for research into the platform’s issues with hate speech and disinformation.
Credit: Harun Ozalp/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

UPDATE: Aug. 1, 2023, 5:07 p.m. EDT X / Twitter officially announced that it filed a legal claim against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) late Monday night.

Elon Musk’s X has announced Tuesday that it had followed through on its legal threats against the Center of Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that tracks hate speech and disinformation online.

In a post shared on its website, X alleges that the CCDH is trying to stifle it’s users’ free speech and pressure the company’s advertisers. Musk’s company also claims the CCDH improperly accessed X’s data.

CCDH provided Mashable with its own response.

“Elon Musk’s latest legal threat is straight out of the authoritarian playbook – he is now showing he will stop at nothing to silence anyone who criticizes him for his own decisions and actions,” said CCDH Founder and CEO Imran Ahmed. “The Center for Countering Digital Hate’s research shows that hate and disinformation is spreading like wildfire on the platform under Musk’s ownership and this lawsuit is a direct attempt to silence those efforts. People don’t want to see or be associated with hate, antisemitism, and the dangerous content that we all see proliferating on X. Musk is trying to ‘shoot the messenger’ who highlights the toxic content on his platform rather than deal with the toxic environment he’s created. The CCDH’s independent research won’t stop – Musk will not bully us into silence.”

Published Monday, July 31:

Fresh off of making legal threats to Microsoft and Meta, X (Twitter) has its sights set on a new potential lawsuit: One against a nonprofit that tracks hate speech and disinformation online.

On Monday, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) shared a letter, sent by Twitter’s legal representative Alex Spiro, threatening legal action against the organization for allegedly making “a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically.”

In response to the letter, as first reported by the New York Times, the CCDH’s own legal counsel responded and cautioned against any further attempt from Twitter to silence the organization. Imran Ahmed, who heads the CCDH, also responded in a post on their website beside embeds of both letters.

“Elon Musk’s actions represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research in the desperate hope that he can stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers,” said Ahmed.

In a series of tweets on Monday, Musk also responded to the CCDH’s statements.

Tweet may have been deleted

“They should save their words for the jury,” Musk posted. “Let’s pull the mask off this organization and see who is really behind it.”

Tweet may have been deleted

While the CCDH has published numerous reports researching hate speech and the spread of disinformation on Twitter, the letter from Twitter’s lawyer specifically mentions one that focused on Twitter Blue, the company’s $8 per month paid premium subscription service.

The CCDH report on Twitter Blue found that the company failed to act on 99 percent of Blue-subscribed accounts that were reported for hate speech. Twitter disputes CCDH’s findings in the letter, saying “claims in this article are false, misleading, or both, and they are not supported by anything that could credibly be called research.”

“We have reason to believe that your organization’s operations—and thus its campaign to drive advertisers off Twitter by smearing the company and its owner—are supported by funding from X Corp.’s commercial competitors, as well as government entities and their affiliates,” the letter from Twitter’s representative continues.

Twitter has struggled with advertisers, traditionally the company’s biggest revenue driver, since Musk’s takeover of the company in October of last year. Half of the social media platform’s top advertisers stopped ad campaigns on the site shortly after Musk’s acquisition. And recent reports have found that advertising on the platform is still way down compared to before Twitter became privately owned by Musk. In fact, Musk has admitted so himself in a tweet earlier this month.

“We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load,” Musk said

As for the allegations that CCDH is “funded” by its competitors and government entities, the organization says it does “not accept any funding from tech companies, governments, or their affiliates.”

The CCDH received significant attention in early 2021 after releasing a report detailing how the majority of COVID vaccine disinformation online stemmed from just 12 anti-vaxx influencers, which the report branded as the “Disinformation Dozen.” In the months following the report, platforms like YouTube and Facebook took action against these accounts.

Earlier this month, Musk even responded to a tweet that was critical of the CCDH’s Disinformation Dozen report.

Tweet may have been deleted

“Who is funding this organization?” Musk tweeted. “They spread disinformation and push censorship, while claiming the opposite. Truly evil.”

The specific tweet Musk responded to was referring to Facebook’s own previous critiques of CCDH’s research into its own platform. Facebook’s parent company, of course, is Meta, which recently launched Threads, Twitter’s biggest competition yet.

As previously mentioned, the platform formerly known as Twitter has also sent legal threats to Microsoft and Meta in recent months. Musk has accused Microsoft of “training illegally using Twitter data.” The company has also alleged that Meta used Twitter “trade secrets” and intellectual property in building Threads, a claim which Meta denied.

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