‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Elon Musk Threatens to Sue a Non-Profit That Reported Increased Hate Speech on Twitter

AP Photo/Michel Euler

The New York Times reported on Monday that Elon Musk is threatening to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit organization that published research finding hate speech has run wild on Twitter.

The letter from X Corp, the company that owns Twitter, was sent to the CCDH on July 20 and accused the organization of “a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically.” The aforementioned claims were made about eight studies including one published on June 1 that stated:

New research shows that Twitter fails to act on 99% of hate posted by Twitter Blue subscribers, suggesting that the platform is allowing them to break its rules with impunity and is even algorithmically boosting their toxic tweets.

The X Corp letter slammed the CCDH’s research for using flawed methodology and accused them of being funded by Twitter’s competitors. The CCDH’s chief executive Imran Ahmed denied both of these accusations and told the Times that “Elon Musk’s actions represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research,” adding that Musk just wants to “stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers.”

Reporters Sheera Frenkel and Ryan Mac pointed out in the article that the letter to CCDH is the third threat of legal action made by Musk and X Corp in the space of two months; a May letter to Microsoft threatened to sue over the misuse of Twitter’s data and a letter sent to direct competitor Meta earlier in July threatened to sue over copied trade secrets used to create Threads.

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