The instant they enter discovery, he’s going to have to drop the suit like usual or hand over an awful lot of evidence of interacting with some extremely shitty racist ass hats. I’m excited for either outcome.
X sues Media Matters to silence moderation criticism
Submitted 11 months ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970274/x-elon-musk-media-matters-lawsuit-nazi-ads-filed
Comments
drdabbles@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Oh… I want discovery to go deep. Like all the way to the market manipulation that caused him to buy Twitter in the first place… didn’t he avoid the lawsuit and buy Twitter just to avoid discovery? Let’s discover all!
drdabbles@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Pretty much, yep. What did end up in discovery was an absolute embarrassment to anybody with a shred of dignity. Obviously Musk has none of that, so we’re here again.
Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Please consider setting up an account on Mastodon and slowly move over as it takes time to build your network just like it did when you first joined Twitter. Get off Twitter.
oversea@lemmings.world 11 months ago
As much as I hate twitter and musk like you, mastdon can not be used for news but solely a social network app, which I’m not intrested in any. Tried it for a while and mostly it’s cat pics.
Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
That is why I suggest just opening account and cross post so that over time the network can grow. The more who do this the more relevant the content will be on Mastodon. That, or we call all be held as hostages on X and survive to Elon’s desires.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I know you don’t mean him, but that would be funny as shit to see him link a mastodon account, and see what the reaction of the community is to him.
Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Elon did profess the virtues of decentralized currencies, but that was all just a pump and dump in the end. He could care less about decentralization as he is all about centralization clearly.
JeffKerman1999@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
Mister “fined by sec for stock manipulation” screams about fraud? Also that situation with the ads should have never been possible in the first place.
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Its just SO good
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Why do they keep proving this “every accusation is a confession” meme?
MonsiuerPatEBrown@reddthat.com 11 months ago
That is the white supremacist attitude:
Just because Mr. White can do something doesn’t mean anyone else can do it.
As a corollary to that: if anyone else can do something then surely Mr. White can do it, too. Mr. White demands it.
Here alleged White Supremacist Elon Musk supports Mr. White’s right to say anything and everything while anyone not Mr. White must seek permission.
As someone who struggles internally with my racism I can’t tell you how much I hate seeing the richest man in the world reinforce these white supremacist values while I try to strangle them out of my interior life.
triclops6@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
As someone on the receiving end of it, thank you for your struggle
masquenox@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Here alleged white supremacist Elon Musk
What do you mean, “alleged white supremacist”?
The guy is an overt white supremacist - end of story.
I can’t tell you how much I hate seeing the richest man in the world reinforce these white supremacist
I guess this is the first time you’ve been made aware that white supremacism and capitalism have always gone together like a house on fire?
capital@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Mr. free speech absolutist.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You misspelled abolitionist.
foggy@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Respond to their legal service with 💩
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Call them a pedo. Instant win.
DeathWearsANecktie@lemm.ee 11 months ago
“”““free speech””“”
AlternateRoute@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
The alleged manipulation involved creating an account that exclusively followed a combination of major brands and extremist content, then “endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed” until it saw a confluence of the two.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
Bold move to admit that what was reported was both true and an intended way for ads to be served on Xitter.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I know, right?! “The user has to follow our brands and our extremist content!!!”
Vant@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Wait, you only see ads from major brands if you follow them?
I wish they did this on youtube and every other site on the internet. I would never ever see a single ad.
evidences@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You’re probably more likely to see ads from brands you follow but there’s no way in hell you get less ads if you follow fewer brands.
dustyData@lemmy.world 11 months ago
No, you’ll constantly see ads from everything. The only limiting factor is that you block the brand’s account. Even then they were discussing the possibility of forbidding the users from blocking ads.
tory@lemmy.world 11 months ago
So the manipulation was just… be interested in racist content. Of course this shit is filed in Texas, no other state is dumb enough to give this case daylight.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Your speech is free, as long as you can afford it.
athos77@kbin.social 11 months ago
Time to go look up Texas' anti-SLAPP laws ...
Maestro@kbin.social 11 months ago
According to the article there aren't any. That's why he filed in Texas. I do wonder how he can file in Texas if neither X nor Media Matters is located there. Diesn't that make it simple to file a motion to move the case to California and then use their anti-SLAPP laws?
jonne@infosec.pub 11 months ago
That’s probably what will happen.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
In a sensible world. In the real world there is a decent chance some activist judge will deny the motion. Corps love suing in Texas.
Deceptichum@kbin.social 11 months ago
How can't he slapp?
jballs@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Streisand Effect: mediamatters.org/…/musk-endorses-antisemitic-cons…
Kyoyeou@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
In France we also renamed it the David Michigan effect
Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Well atleast they’re admiting the screenshots are legit. Knowing how much people hate this guy, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the algorithm manipulation claim was actually true. However you’d think that by this point they would already have optimized their advertising system to prevent this exact thing from happening.
romkube@lemmy.world 11 months ago
They probably has a solution for it, but mr. “I know better then everyone else” probably took the solution offline while he was dismantling twitter earlier this year
tory@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Algorithm manipulation makes it sound like hacking.
Twitter is arguing they gasp followed racist accounts and gasp waited a bit.
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 11 months ago
How performative vs serious are these Musksuits?
Salamendacious@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I doubt he’ll win but media matters will have attorney fees and those can be financially devastating sometimes.
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 11 months ago
How are Tesla shaehrolders not like suing for something to deal with Musk doing stupid shit like this? How far are they gonna let him go?
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 11 months ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Nearly simultaneously, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation into Media Matters for “potential fraudulent activity.” Musk posted the news on his X account, stating that “fraud has both civil and criminal penalties.” Musk had previously responded to a tweet by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller that suggested conservative attorneys general (like Paxton) look into fraud charges.
“Media Matters has manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.” The alleged manipulation involved creating an account that exclusively followed a combination of major brands and extremist content, then “endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed” until it saw a confluence of the two.
(Musk famously beat a libel suit after falsely dubbing one of his critics a “pedo guy.”) “We are going to continue our work undeterred.
If he sues us, we will win,” the organization’s president Angelo Carusone told The Verge in a previous statement, saying that “Elon Musk has spent the last few days making meritless legal threats, elevating bizarre conspiracy theories, and lobbing vicious personal attacks against his ‘enemies’ online.” Carusone reiterated the sentiment after the suit was filed.
Moving the lawsuit also puts it under the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has proven highly sympathetic to conservative figures who claim they’ve been censored — something Musk has made a centerpiece of his publicity strategy around X.
But she suggested employees “be as fiscally responsible as possible” to offset potential losses from advertisers and exhorted them to “by all means, put your heads together to bring new revenue into the company.”
The original article contains 647 words, the summary contains 293 words. Saved 55%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
frazw@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Why is it OK for an American company to headquarter in one state then cherry pick another in which to file a lawsuit. Surely a company should be governed by the laws of the state in which they are based. It seems weird to choose the set of laws you want to be judged by when the defendant cannot do the same.
Diplomjodler@feddit.de 11 months ago
Because the system is set up so that the powerful can fuck over the powerless in any way they want.
BlackSkinnedJew@lemmynsfw.com 11 months ago
Shhhh 🤫🤫 don’t say it too loud or the proletariate could notice it…
flumph@programming.dev 11 months ago
It shouldn’t be OK and Media Matters will surely file for a change of venue. They’re located in DC and Twitter in California. Heck, Twitters own TOS says that your use of the service is governed by California law, so any claim that they fraudulently used the service should be handled in California.
But activist judges are also known to deny motions for made up reasons, so Twitter starts in Texas in hopes an activist judge keeps the case there to “stick it to the liberals.”
ikidd@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Texas is famous for judges that keep the venue there, with laws that are friendly to corporations. It’s why it’s the most popular state for these shitbird corporate lawyers to file suits.
hagelslager@feddit.nl 11 months ago
Apparently X is registered in Nevada.
ZickZack@fedia.io 11 months ago
This is not true and wouldn't make why sense: let's say you are a delivery company and one of your drivers runs over a dog in Texas. The lawsuit can be filed in Texas, regardless of whether your company is in Texas, California, or even outside the united states. The place you are incorporated in doesn't change the damages or laws you violated when running over the dog. Of course you can also move the venue to the state the company is based in.
You cannot (generally) move it to another state, since that state doesn't even have jurisdiction over any part of the incident.
The internet is just special in the sense that really something that happened on the internet happened everywhere on earth at the same time, meaning any venue is a place where potential damages were accrued.
frazw@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Agree that if an incident happens in a particular jurisdiction, the local court should handle it. That makes sense, no argument here. But here they get to choose the set of laws because there was no physical location? That just feels wrong somehow. Anyway there is a physical location and if anything, the incident was ‘perpetrated’ by a person who was physically located somewhere at the time. It should be handled by the court local to them at the time. In the case of organisations, I guess this would mean where the defendant company operates from. Or if we accept it is virtual and everywhere then, it should be governed by federal laws not state laws.
DacoTaco@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Makes sense, but how can things like the slapp suit from bill murrey have been in a state (west virginia) neither hbo ( who called bill murrey a lot of shit and is located in new york ) , bill murrey ( utah) or his company were in?
scarabic@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I think your example covers the case where a company has a lawsuit filed against it. And the object of the lawsuit is an event that occurred in a particular state. But why should a company be able to originate a lawsuit in the state of their choosing? Shouldn’t it either be their home state or the home state of whom ever they’re suing? Or wherever the events in question took place?
charonn0@startrek.website 11 months ago
It was filed in federal court. Why they filed in a federal court in Texas is not yet clear.
Seasm0ke@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Iirc musk lives there