Twitter has sued the Center for Countering Digital Hatred (CCDH), a non-profit group that negatively assessed the actions of Elon Musk’s company to counter attempts to incite hatred.
Twitter, which received the name X after the rebranding, went to court amid the threat of legal proceedings, which became publicly known only a few hours before its actual start.
The lawsuit was filed last Monday, July 31, in federal court in San Francisco. Elon Musk’s company accuses the watchdog responsible for suppressing the spread of narratives that contribute to the activation of hate speech that he deliberately committed actions that could potentially alienate advertisers from interacting with this virtual platform. The object of the claim is a report by a non-profit group, which contains negative criticism about Twitter’s practice of countering the intensification of verbal cruelty in the digital environment.
Representatives of Elon Musk’s company claim that CCDH violated the terms of service of the social network and federal laws on hacking. The prosecution’s position is based on the fact that the watchdog unlawfully deleted data from the firm’s platform and encouraged some individual to improperly collect information about Twitter, which was then transferred to a third-party brand monitoring service provider.
The complaint against CCDH alleges that the non-profit group is involved in a large-scale campaign aimed at forcing users of the social network through influence to stop expressing their opinions and views.
Imran Ahmed, the head of CCDH, said that he perceives the accusations, especially concerning an unnamed individual, in some sense as a conspiracy theory. He believes that Elon Musk in this case creates some kind of excuse in order to transfer responsibility for his own failures to the monitoring organization. According to him, after buying Twitter, the billionaire signaled freedom of action to all adherents of radical views, including those rejecting the very possibility of an opposite opinion, and now he is surprised at the increase in the amount of content containing the ideas of categorical rejection of a tolerant attitude to world-outlook systems, the semantic basis of which does not coincide with the worldview of haters.
Imran Ahmed also stated that his organization only reflects the ideological and thematic content of virtual platforms. In his opinion, in this case, Elon Musk will sue the reflection in the mirror.
Imran Ahmed says that many people make donations on the website of the organization he heads. He noted that the watchdog will need financial assistance in order to survive the proceedings.
Also, according to the CEO of the non-profit group, there is no transparency on social interaction platforms in the digital dimension.
The lawsuit was filed after CCDH on July 31 disclosed the original Twitter’s threat to sue on July 20, and its response to this threat. The watchdog called the claims of Elon Musk’s company ridiculous. The organization stated that this lawsuit is a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research. CCDH suggests that in this case, the social network hopes to restore relations with advertisers. At the same time, the company does not hide this, which confirms one of the points of the lawsuit but does not define this claim as the only one or the most significant.
On July 31, a message was published on the firm’s blog, which contains a statement that the court proceedings are aimed at promoting freedom of expression. The social network in this message defines itself as a free public service, funded mainly by advertisers. The company also notes that CCDH’s intimidation campaign and the practice of pressure on brands restrict freedom of expression and hinder the development of public dialogue.
The threat of July 20 showed that Twitter was investigating the possibility of suing CCDH for violating federal laws against false advertising. The complaint filed on Monday, according to preliminary information, does not contain any mention of this intention.
As we have reported earlier, Twitter Loses Nearly Half Advertising Revenue.
