Media Matters published a report which said that the ads for major brands appeared next to posts touting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.This led to several advertisers pulling their ads from X, which shook Musk as he criticised Media Matters publicly.
What does the lawsuit say
In the lawsuit filed in a US District Court in Texas, X claimed that Media Matters “manipulated” the social media platform by using accounts that exclusively followed accounts for major brands or users known to produce fringe content, and “resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing” the feed until it found ads next to extremist posts.
It also accused that Media Matters’ report of misrepresenting the typical experience on X “with the intention of harming X and its business”.
What Media Matters has to say
Meanwhile, Media Matters’ President Angelo Carusone called the lawsuit “frivolous”, saying it was “meant to bully X’s critics into silence”.
“Media Matters stands behind its reporting and looks forward to winning in court,” news agency Reuters quoted Angelo as saying.
Apart from publishing a report which led Apple, Sony, IBM, Comcast, and several other advertisers to pull ads from the platform in response, Media Matters also accused Musk of endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Why is this case important?
This is not the first time that a report has attracted such a response from X. There have been multiple instances where reports have called out the platform for not doing enough to respect the rights of their users. This reportedly led to some dent in advertising, which is a major source of the company’s revenue.
To bring back advertisers on the platform, Musk hired Linda Yaccarino as CEO, who told employees in a memo that brands have ‘temporarily paused advertising’ due to a misleading and manipulated article but “the data will tell the real story”.
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