A federal judge in California on Monday tossed billionaire Elon Musk’s X’s lawsuit against pro-censorship organization Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
CCDH, a British nonprofit, has pushed tech giants to cease advertising on conservative websites and published a June study alleging X has allowed objectionable speech to proliferate on the platform. The social media company sued the nonprofit in July for allegedly illegally obtaining X’s data for the study as well as suggesting the company is “overwhelmed by harmful content” and demanding companies cease advertising on X; but the judge found the purpose of the suit was to hamper CCDH’s speech.
“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose,” Judge Charles R. Breyer wrote in the ruling. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech.”
CCDH’s June report titled “Twitter Fails To Act On 99% Of Twitter Blue Accounts Tweeting Hate,” consists of the nonprofit reporting 100 posts from Twitter Blue users and checking whether the social media platform took action against them within four days, according to X. CCDH’s assertions are “false and misleading claims” intended to clamp down on public discourse and reduce X’s revenue, the company asserted in a July blog post.
Social analytics platform Brandwatch informed X on July 20 that CCDH allegedly unlawfully accessed its data and misused it, according to the blog post. CCDH allegedly “scraped” the company’s data, which infringes on X’s policies.
“CCDH successfully argued that the lawsuit was a transparent attempt to shut down its free speech,” it stated in response to the judge’s ruling.
Labour Party organizers founded CCDH in 2019 and the nonprofit has urged large tech firms to stop advertising on right-leaning websites like The Federalist and Breitbart News, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.
CCDH’s research “has forced change at once-reluctant social media platforms and led to anti-vaxxers removing their propaganda to avoid being banned,” the nonprofit says on its website.
X intends to appeal the judge’s decision, the company posted on the platform.
X and CCDH did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
