A judge has thrown down X’s lawsuit against the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which studies hate speech on the platform controlled by Elon Musk. The judge stated in the ruling that the action was an effort to “punish” the group for voicing concerns about the business.
Last summer, X filed a lawsuit against the CCDH, claiming that the organization was “scraping” its platform as part of a “scare campaign” to harm its advertising revenue. According to research the group had released, X was allegedly encouraging hate speech rather than taking action in response to complaints of it.
In a ruling, federal judge Charles Breyer said that “this case is about punishing” CCDH for publishing unflattering research. “It is clear to the Court that if X Corp. was indeed motived to spend money in response to CCDH’s scraping in 2023, it was not because of the harm such scraping posed to the X platform, but because of the harm it posed to X Corp.’s image,” Breyer wrote. “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.”
X said it planned to appeal the decision.
In a statement, CCDH CEO Imram Ahmed said that the ruling “affirmed our fundamental right to research, to speak, to advocate, and to hold accountable social media companies for decisions they make behind closed doors.” He added that “it is now abundantly clear that we need federal transparency laws” that would require online platforms to make data available to independent researchers.
