Elon Musk's 'thermonuclear' lawsuit over hateful ads on X...actually backs them up

Το X του Elon Musk, πρώην Twitter, κατέθεσε μήνυση ισχυριζόμενης δυσφήμισης από έναν ειδησεογραφικό οργανισμό για ισχυρισμούς ότι μεγάλες εταιρείες είχαν διαφημίσεις δίπλα σε αντισημιτικό content. Αλλά η μήνυση φαίνεται να επιβεβαιώνει το ίδιο το πράγμα που ισχυρίζεται ότι είναι δυσφημιστικό.

Subjectthe media last Thursday published an article με στιγμιότυπα οθόνης που δείχνουν διαφημίσεις από την IBM, την Apple, την Oracle και άλλες που εμφανίζονται δίπλα σε περιεχόμενο μίσους — όπως, γεμάτο με περιεχόμενο υπέρ του Χίτλερ.

IBM and Apple have since pulled their ads from X, no doubt a major blow to a company already facing an advertiser exodus. (It didn't help that Musk himself appeared to personally espouse some anti-Semitic views.)

The article infuriated Musk, and the billionaire vowed over the weekend that "Second court opens Monday, X Corp will file a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and all those complicit in this fraudulent attack on our company."

The lawsuit was indeed filed, but the promised head appears to be missing. You can read it here, it's pretty short. The company alleges that Media Matters defamed X, having "fabricated" or "fabricated" the images. that he had not "found" the ads as he claimed, but had "was created αυτά τα ζευγάρια με μυστικότητα». (Η έμφαση είναι δική τους.)

If these images were actually fabricated or created in the manner implied by the language here, this would indeed be a serious blow to the credibility of Media Matters and its reporting. But X's lawyers don't mean the images were fabricated — in fact, CEO Linda Yaccarino posted today that "only 2 users saw the Apple ad next to the content," which seems to directly contradict the idea that the pairs were made.

Media Matters definitely created the conditions for these ads to appear by using an older account (no ad filter), then only following hate accounts and the advertisers' corporate accounts. Certainly the number of users who only follow neo-Nazis and big tech brands is limited. But ads definitely appeared in the feed next to that content, as Yaccarino confirmed.

The lawsuit says those accounts were "known to produce extreme, fringe content," yet they weren't taken down until Media Matters flagged them. So X knew they were extreme, but didn't delegitimize them — that's what the lawsuit says.

Therefore, there does not appear to be anything inherently fraudulent or fabricated about the claim that these ads appeared alongside this content. Why did they do it? It just hadn't happened to an "authentic user" yet, but the circumstances for it to happen weren't really that strange. Angelo Carusone, who heads Media Matters, too marked in X shortly after Yaccarino confirmed that the ads were placed on a search for “Kill Jews”.

Controlling hateful content is incredibly difficult, of course, and most social networks have found it to be a constant battle against the proliferation of hateful hashtags, usernames and slang. However, Yaccarino earlier claimed that brands are "protected from the risk of being adjacent" to hateful content. Imperfectly, it seems.

Το edge case που εμφανίζεται από το Media Matters μπορεί να μην είναι αντιπροσωπευτικό του μέσου χρήστη, αλλά δείχνει κάτι που είναι απολύτως εφικτό στο X και οι advertisers φαίνεται ότι, αρκετά ορθολογικά, αρνήθηκαν να αναλάβουν αυτό το ρίσκο. Ακόμη και αυτά που δεν αναφέρθηκαν, οι δικηγόροι του Χ γράφουν:

Media Matters' manipulation was so severe that companies that don't even appear in the article pulled ads from X. Those companies include Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Sony.

Αυτό μάλλον δεν είναι αλήθεια. Για παράδειγμα, η Lionsgate είπε συγκεκριμένα ότι «το tweet του Elon» ήταν ο λόγος για την απόφασή τους να φύγουν.

The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District Court of Texasis seeking $100.000 in damages and a jury trial, though neither outcome appears likely.