SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Monday threw out a lawsuit filed last year by Elon Musk’s X platform against the nonprofit organization Center for Countering Digital Hate.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer dismissed the lawsuit and wrote that it was an attempt to silence the center for its reports about rising hate speech and conspiracy theories on X.
“This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech,” the judge wrote.
In a statement Monday, X said that it disagreed with Breyer’s decision and planned to appeal.
Musk, who has called himself a free speech absolutist, targeted the Center for Countering Digital Hate after it released a report called “Toxic Twitter” last year, when X was known as Twitter. That report said that Twitter under Musk’s ownership had reinstated the accounts of previously suspended “neo-Nazis, white supremacists, misogynists and spreaders of dangerous conspiracy theories,” and that Twitter stood to profit from additional advertising as a result.
X sued the center and a separate nonprofit, the European Climate Foundation, which X’s lawyers said conspired with the center to illegally obtain data about the platform’s advertising. The lawsuit said that the organizations had “cherry-picked” information and that they were unlawfully interfering with X’s relationship with advertisers.
But Breyer wrote in his ruling that X was simply trying to silence its critics. He ruled that X’s suit violated a California law barring litigation that is designed to punish free speech, cases that are also known as “strategic lawsuits against public participation” or SLAPP.
“X Corp.’s motivation in bringing this case is evident. X Corp. has brought this case in order to punish CCDH for CCDH publications that criticized X Corp. — and perhaps in order to dissuade others who might wish to engage in such criticism,” Breyer wrote.
“Although X Corp. accuses CCDH of trying ‘to censor viewpoints that…
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