A federal judge in California on Monday dismissed X's lawsuit against a nonprofit that studies online hate speech, ruling that the social media company's case was designed to punish researchers for speaking freely about the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.
Mr. the platform after the acquisition of Elon Musk. X said the group's investigation was hurting his business by driving away advertisers, costing him millions of dollars.
But the court ruled that X's lawsuit was an attempt to penalize the group for speaking negatively about the company and that its work was protected by law.
“Sometimes it is not clear what is driving litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a lawsuit can one attempt to surmise the plaintiff's true purpose,” Justice Charles R. Breyer wrote in a decision on Monday. “Other times, a complaint refers so blatantly and loudly to one thing that there can be no doubt of its purpose.” He added: “This case is about punishing the defendants for their speech.”
The ruling is a blow to Musk, who has used legal threats to fight critics of his social media platform. In November, he sued the advocacy group Media Matters for America after it published a report showing ads about X next to neo-Nazi publications.
“We create costs for lies and hate,” said Imran Ahmed, executive director of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “Today the courts have affirmed our fundamental right to investigate, speak out, defend and hold social media companies accountable for the decisions they make behind closed doors that affect our children, our democracy and our fundamental human rights and civil liberties.”
X said in a statement that it planned to appeal the decision and would continue to pursue legal action against the organization for “illegally obtaining data from the platform to create misleading research.”
The case was one of many legal fights currently involving Musk and X. The company is suing a law firm that represented it before Musk's estate, alleging that it charged unreasonably high fees. Former Twitter executives are also suing the company, alleging that Musk improperly withheld their severance pay.
Additionally, Musk is suing OpenAI, the artificial intelligence lab he co-founded, alleging that the company violated his principles. (The New York Times is also suing OpenAI and Microsoft for misuse of their copyrighted materials.)
