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Elon Musk\u2019s X, formerly Twitter, has filed a lawsuit alleging defamation by a news organization over claims that major companies had ads appear next to antisemitic content. But the suit appears to confirm the very thing it claims is defamatory.<\/p>\n
Media Matters last Thursday published an article<\/a> with screenshots showing ads from IBM, Apple, Oracle and others appearing next to hateful content \u2014 like, full on pro-Hitler stuff.<\/p>\n IBM and Apple have since pulled their ads from X, no doubt a serious blow for a company already facing an exodus of advertisers<\/a>. (It didn\u2019t help that Musk himself appeared to personally endorse some antisemitic views<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The article provoked Musk\u2019s wrath, and the billionaire over the weekend vowed that \u201cThe split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and all those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuit was indeed filed, but it appears to be missing the promised warhead. You can read it here, it\u2019s quite short. The company alleges that Media Matters defamed X, having \u201cmanufactured\u201d or \u201ccontrived\u201d the images; that it had not \u201cfound\u201d the ads as claimed, but rather had \u201ccreated<\/em> these pairings in secrecy.\u201d (Emphasis theirs.)<\/p>\n Had these images been actually manufactured or created in the way implied the language here, that would indeed be a serious blow to the credibility of Media Matters and its reporting. But X\u2019s lawyers don\u2019t mean that the images were manufactured \u2014 in fact, CEO Linda Yaccarino posted today that \u201conly 2 users saw Apple\u2019s ad next to the content,\u201d which seems to directly contradict the idea that the pairings were manufactured.<\/p>\n Media Matters certainly set up the conditions for those ads to appear by using an older account (no ad filter), then following only hateful accounts and the corporate accounts of advertisers. Certainly the number of users following only neo-Nazis and major tech brands is limited. But the ads unequivocally appeared in the feed next to that content, as Yaccarino confirmed.<\/p>\n The lawsuit says that these accounts were \u201cknown to produce extreme, fringe content,\u201d yet they were not demonetized until after Media Matters pointed them out. So X knew they were extreme, but did not demonetize them \u2014 that is what the lawsuit expressly states.<\/p>\n So there does not appear to be anything inherently fraudulent or manufactured about claiming those ads appeared next to that content. Because they did. It just hadn\u2019t happened to an \u201cauthentic user\u201d yet, but the conditions for that to happen were not really that outlandish. Angelo Carusone, who heads up Media Matters, also pointed out on X<\/a> shortly after Yaccarino\u2019s confirmation that ads were placed on a search for \u201ckilljews.\u201d<\/p>\n Moderation of hateful content is incredibly hard, of course, and most social networks have found that it is a constant battle against mutations of hateful hashtags, user names, and slang. But Yaccarino earlier claimed that brands were \u201cprotected from the risk of being next to\u201d hateful content. Incompletely, it seems.<\/p>\n The edge case shown by Media Matters may not be representative of the average user, but it does show something that is perfectly possible on X, and advertisers seem to have, quite rationally, declined to take that risk. Even ones that weren\u2019t mentioned, X\u2019s lawyers write:<\/p>\n Media Matters\u2019 manipulation was so severe that companies not even featured in the article also pulled ads from X. These companies include Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and Sony.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s probably not true. For instance, Lionsgate specifically said that \u201cElon\u2019s tweet\u201d was the reason for their decision to leave.<\/p>\n\n