Last year, Elon Musk, the X CEO who professes to be a champion of free speech, threatened to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an independent non-profit research organization that found that hate, racism and disinformation had increased substantially on the platform that used to be Twitter after the Tesla boss took over. Well, X did eventually file that lawsuit, but on Monday, it was dismissed by a federal judge who essentially told Musk and the other X reps to stop being whiny little weenies who file suits out of transparent pettiness and white fragility. (OK, he didn’t say all that, but he was probably thinking it.)
“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation,” District Judge Charles Breyer of the US District Court for the Northern District of California wrote in a 52-page order. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech.”
Whaaaaah? This just couldn’t be. Musk just recently told ex-CNN host Don Lemon that the whole reason he acquired X in the first place was to “preserve freedom of speech in America.” Then again, Lemon’s show on X was abruptly canceled shortly after that interview, in which Musk embarrassed himself by failing to answer simple and reasonable questions about the decline of X and his absurd DEI remarks without getting visibly flustered and upset.
It’s almost as if Musk’s advocacy for free speech is limited to whatever free speech doesn’t make him or his company look bad.
As Breyer noted in his ruling, X’s lawsuit isn’t even accusing anyone of defamation.
“If CCDH’s publications were defamatory, that would be one thing, but X Corp. has carefully avoided saying that they are,” the judge wrote, adding that X “wishes to have it both ways,” by trying to impose “punishing…
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