Elon Musk Accused Of Intimidation For Threatening An Anti-Hate Speech Group

UPDATE: Aug. 1 — On Monday, after this story was published, Twitter — now rebranded as X Corp. — followed through on its legal threat, suing the Center for Countering Digital Hate in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Among other things, the suit alleges that CCDH intentionally sought to deprive Twitter of advertising revenue through allegedly false claims regarding the volume of hate speech on the social media platform. Twitter also alleged that CCDH used company data from the social media analytics firm Brandwatch without authorization.

CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said the lawsuit was “straight out of the authoritarian playbook.”

PREVIOUSLY:

An anti-hate speech group is fighting back after Twitter threatened legal action over a study that found the company failed to remove hateful tweets from paid accounts. 

The legal threat from Twitter accused the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit organization, of publishing “inflammatory, outrageous, and false or misleading assertions” about the social media platform specifically, in the form of the group’s research into Twitter’s failure to take down hate speech since Elon Musk took over. (Musk recently rebranded Twitter as “X Corp.”)

In June, CCDH researchers used Twitter’s reporting mechanism to flag 100 tweets from paid “Twitter Blue” subscribers that CCDH saw as violating Twitter’s policies, including “racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi, antisemitic or conspiracy content.” Four days later, according to the group , Twitter had only taken down one post out of 100, and all of the offending accounts remained active.

Twitter claimed in its letter that it had “reason to believe” CCDH’s work had been funded by Twitter’s competitors and that it appeared “calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically.” The company’s attorney, Alex Spiro, provided no evidence for the claims.

Spiro wrote that Twitter was “investigating” whether CCDH’s work was “actionable” under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act , which concerns trademark infringement, false advertisement and related matters.

Since March , reporters’ questions to Twitter have been answered with a single poop emoji. On Monday, however, the company’s press account told HuffPost, “We’ll get back to you soon,” but did not answer any questions by press time.

Twitter’s letter was dated July 20, according to a copy published by CCDH. The organization responded Monday morning in a letter of its own calling Twitter’s message “ridiculous” and said its threat of legal action was “bogus and you know it.” 

The letter noted that CCDH has published work critical of Twitter’s competitors as well, and that “simply put, there is no bona fide legal grievance here,” but rather “a transparent attempt to silence honest criticism.”

“CCDH will not be bullied by your clients,” wrote Roberta Kaplan, an attorney representing the group. The letter demanded that Twitter preserve documents, text messages and other records “concerning disinformation and hate speech on Twitter’s platform, Twitter’s content moderation policies and its enforcement of those policies, and Twitter’s advertising business and revenues.” 

Imran Ahmed, the CEO of CCDH, said in a statement that Musk was targeting the organization because “we reveal the truth about the spread of hate and disinformation on Twitter under his ownership, and it’s impacting his bottom line.” 

“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,” Ahmed said. “Advertisers are fleeing his platform for one clear reason: Elon Musk has supported the proliferation of hate and racism on it, and he doesn’t care to stop it.” 

Twitter’s advertising has tanked since Musk purchased the site in October.

CCDH also shared a note of support from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who praised the group’s “important work exposing the hate and disinformation proliferating” on Twitter and criticized Musk for attempting to silence his critics. 

Media outlets, including HuffPost , The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian frequently cite CCDH’s research on Twitter and other websites, including Google, TikTok and Substack. 

The group’s work on Twitter has made waves  since Musk’s takeover of the social media site and his mass layoffs of content moderation staff, along with his decision to allow previously-banned accounts back on the site.

Earlier this month two days before his attorney’s letter to CCDH  Musk referred to a report from the group and asked on Twitter, “Anyone know who is supporting this rat?” and “Who is funding this organization? They spread disinformation and push censorship, while claiming the opposite. Truly evil.”