Antisemitism: Elon Musk's alleged ‘pro-Nazi’ X drags ‘malicious’ Media Matters to court
Elon Musk has been denounced by the White House for his "abhorrent promotion" of anti-Semitism
Elon Musk's X Corp filed a lawsuit against Media Matters, a non-profit, on Monday, claiming that the old Twitter platform was overrun with antisemitic material, which was scaring away advertisers.
In a complaint that was submitted to a US federal court located in Texas, X claims that Media Matters was "tricking the algorithm into thinking Media Matters wanted to view both hateful content and content from large advertisers."
High-profile companies who stopped running advertisements on X last week included Apple, Comcast, NBCUniversal, and IBM. This was in response to Media Matters' claim that the platform included adverts including pro-Nazi content.
The departure of advertising also followed Musk's endorsement of a conspiracy theory with anti-Semitic overtones.
"This is a frivolous lawsuit meant to bully X's critics into silence," Media Matters president Angelo Carusone said in response to an AFP inquiry.
"Media Matters stands behind its reporting and looks forward to winning in court."
The richest person in the world, Elon Musk, has been denounced by the White House for his "abhorrent promotion" of anti-Semitism.
In response to a tweet made by the controversial Tesla and SpaceX tycoon on X, the White House responded, saying, "You have said the actual truth."
The original tweet has been widely interpreted as a reference to the long-standing, unfounded conspiracy theory held by White nationalists, according to which Jews are plotting to smuggle illegal immigrants into the US in order to shift the country's demographics away from a majority of white people.
The shooter who killed 11 people in a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 is most infamous for having pushed for this notion.
Referring to Musk's post, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said it was "unacceptable" to repeat such a "hideous lie."
The suit filed Monday does not mention Musk's endorsement of the conspiracy theory, instead blaming recent ad woes on Media Matters.
"Media Matters knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers' posts on X Corp's social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical X users experience," the lawsuit contended.
X said that Media Matters had tricked its algorithm by only following accounts that were associated with extreme, fringe material in addition to well-known businesses.
The outcome, according to the lawsuit, was a feed that was "precision-designed" to generate the type of side-by-side ad and content combinations that X advertisers found offensive.
X requested that the court compel Media Matters to remove the story and pay certain monetary damages.
Twitter, now rebranded as X, Musk has gutted content moderation, restored accounts of previously banned extremists, and allowed users to purchase account verification, helping them profit from viral — but often inaccurate — posts.
An X executive told AFP that it did a "sweep" of accounts pointed out by Media Matters and they will no longer be able to make money from ads.
The posts themselves will be labelled "sensitive media," according to the executive.
