A Texas judge on Thursday denied Media Matters for America's request to dismiss, allowing x's lawsuit over alleged anti-Semitic and racist content to proceed. The edge reported that Northern District of Texas Judge Reed O'Connor dismissed the request for dismissal, paving the way for x's lawsuit against Media Matters to proceed.
Media Matters filed its motion to dismiss in early March, arguing that x's case lacked “personal jurisdiction,” “improper venue,” and “failure to state a claim.” O'Connor dismissed all of those claims, according to court records.
The lawsuit filed last year in federal court seeks damages from the media watchdog group for “maliciously fabricated” images that report that x’s platform placed neo-Nazi and white nationalist content next to advertisers’ images, causing them to leave the site. The images Media Matters used were not fabricated, but x’s claim is that its dogged pursuit of ad placements with racist content by using certain accounts to bypass ad filters caused irreparable harm to the social media giant.
x owner Elon Musk's other companies are located in Texas, but are not directly related to the Media Matters lawsuit. x closed its San Francisco offices earlier this month, and owner Elon Musk announced in July that x-close-california-headquarters-sept-13-reports-say” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:x’s headquarters will move to Austin;cpos:5;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “>x headquarters to move to AustinTesla moved its headquarters from California to the Lone Star State in 2021 and SpaceX from Delaware earlier this year when a judge threw out a $56 billion wage package from the state.
However, in dismissing the personal jurisdiction argument, O'Connor noted that two of x's top advertisers, including AT&T and Oracle, included in Media Matters' coverage, are based in Texas. She cited the landmark 2002 Internet defamation case. Revell vs Lidov citing the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals' holding that “if a fight is going to start in Texas, it is reasonable to expect that it will be resolved there.”
