Musk’s X sues liberal advocacy group Media Matters

[RocksInMyHead]

When Target suffers financial damages from that (and may have to subsequently lay people off), I think that's a tangible harm.

It is a tangible harm, but causing a tangible harm does not automatically confer liability for that harm. If I go to McDonalds and receive a moldy hamburger, then post about it on social media, that's not defamation, even if McDonalds loses business over it - I got a moldy hamburger (or found some expired food, or got a virus while using AV software, or found an IBM ad next to a nazi post).

As we've seen in the past Project Veritas has been sued for those exact types of "grey area" tactics that resulted in entities experiencing financial harm and reputational damage from some of his "exposes", sometimes they've won, sometimes they've lost and it has been ruled as defamation even if it didn't fully meet the legal standard.

Yes, it does resemble some of Project Veritas's tactics. I'm going to need a source on them losing a defamation lawsuit for actions that did not meet the legal standard of defamation though - because on the surface, that's a contradiction. If they lost the lawsuit, then, by definition, their actions/words met the standard of defamation.

 

[iluvatar5150]

For example, let's say "Joe Conservative" is mad about the inclusive bathroom policies of Target. So in order to "get back at them", he purposely goes into every Target in a 50 mile radius, rummages through the back of every shelf until he can find a handful of expired food products on shelves. (knowing that it's a problem that creeps up from time to time in every grocery/retail store, they obviously try to rotate out stock, but sometimes a few things get missed, nobody's perfect and it's a problem that could've been just as easily found at a Walmart...but he likes Walmart, so he doesn't do anything to them)

He then creates a series of viral post "look at all these expired food stuffs I found at Target...better not buy your food there unless you want to get sick! Hey Ruffles and Keebler, you'd better not allow Target to sell your products anymore, someone could get sick and end up blaming your product for it due to how reckless Target is with their food handling!"

...knowing full well that by no means represents the average experience of someone going to Target to get a bag of chips and pack of cookies.

I mean.... That's basically the strategy that constitutional lawyers use to shape SCOTUS decisions.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

It is a tangible harm, but causing a tangible harm does not automatically confer liability for that harm. If I go to McDonalds and receive a moldy hamburger, then post about it on social media, that's not defamation, even if McDonalds loses business over it - I got a moldy hamburger (or found some expired food, or got a virus while using AV software, or found an IBM ad next to a nazi post).

Yes, it does resemble some of Project Veritas's tactics. I'm going to need a source on them losing a defamation lawsuit for actions that did not meet the legal standard of defamation though - because on the surface, that's a contradiction. If they lost the lawsuit, then, by definition, their actions/words met the standard of defamation.

I'll dig up a few concrete examples after work.

n. the act of making untrue statements about another which damages his/her reputation.

It was cases where James O'Keefe didn't technically do anything illegal, and didn't technically lie, but simply orchestrated a situation and presented the information in such a way that allow people to come to an inaccurate conclusion (deliberately) about the existence/pervasiveness of a problem, and said conclusion would've been the same one they'd have reached had he just flat out lied and they believed him.

Like I said, I'll have to go back after work and refresh my memory on exactly which case it was, but I recall it perhaps either being the Pfizer one or the DNC one. (but don't quote me on that yet)

Where he basically lured an employee out to bar under the pretenses of a date, got them nice and "buzzed", and basically led them into making statements that were very exaggerated and unflattering about their employer in efforts to impress the person across the table they thought they were on a date with (as socially lubricated people will tend to do when trying to sound impressive on a date)

It's not illegal to go on a date with someone (even if the intention is to get them to say something)
It's not illegal buy someone a drink
It's not illegal to record the interaction (provided it's a single-party consent state)
It's not illegal to let a drunk person dig themselves into a hole and lie-brag on a date

However, when the end result is a headline "Pfizer/DNC employee confesses that their organization does XYZ" (while leaving out any and all other context)...while technically it's not O'Keefe telling a lie, the employee did technically confess to something (even if their confessing was just a drunken exaggerated brag that wasn't true), that would give people the same impression as if O'Keefe had just flat out lied and said "Pfizer/DNC does XYZ".

 

[iluvatar5150]

I'll dig up a few concrete examples after work.

n. the act of making untrue statements about another which damages his/her reputation.

It was cases where James O'Keefe didn't technically do anything illegal, and didn't technically lie, but simply orchestrated a situation and presented the information in such a way that allow people to come to an inaccurate conclusion (deliberately) about the existence/pervasiveness of a problem, and said conclusion would've been the same one they'd have reached had he just flat out lied and they believed him.

Like I said, I'll have to go back after work and refresh my memory on exactly which case it was, but I recall it perhaps either being the Pfizer one or the DNC one. (but don't quote me on that yet)

Where he basically lured an employee out to bar under the pretenses of a date, got them nice and "buzzed", and basically led them into making statements that were very exaggerated and unflattering about their employer in efforts to impress the person across the table they thought they were on a date with (as socially lubricated people will tend to do when trying to sound impressive on a date)

It's not illegal to go on a date with someone (even if the intention is to get them to say something)
It's not illegal buy someone a drink
It's not illegal to record the interaction (provided it's a single-party consent state)
It's not illegal to let a drunk person dig themselves into a hole and lie-brag on a date

However, when the end result is a headline "Pfizer/DNC employee confesses that their organization does XYZ" (while leaving out any and all other context)...while technically it's not O'Keefe telling a lie, the employee did technically confess to something (even if their confessing was just a drunken exaggerated brag that wasn't true), that would give people the same impression as if O'Keefe had just flat out lied and said "Pfizer/DNC does XYZ".

Scanning over the PV wikipedia page (which I suppose isn't exhaustive), I only see one suit about an attempted setup, and that was between PV and the PV employee who tipped off the subject of the attempted sting.

The other suit I see mentioned stemmed from their dishonest ACORN videos.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Scanning over the PV wikipedia page (which I suppose isn't exhaustive), I only see one suit about an attempted setup, and that was between PV and the PV employee who tipped off the subject of the attempted sting.

The other suit I see mentioned stemmed from their dishonest ACORN videos.

I remembered the ACORN one, but that wasn't the one I was thinking of...

The ACORN one was where he dressed as a pimp, and then recorded their responses (out of context) to make it sound like ACORN was regularly engaging in human trafficking, when the responses he was recording were really more of a "stalling for time to keep this weirdo here until the police arrive" sort of situation. And he wasn't "technically" directly lying, the people did say the things on the video, he just presented it without context, and in such a way that would lead a person to believe something untrue.

It's that murky area I was talking about where, if I record "Joe Smith" saying "Yeah, when I worked for PNC bank, the boss would let us take money out of the drawer for steak dinners" (and leave out the fact that he's saying it facetiously or sarcastically in response to my absurd and contrived set-up). And I run the headline "Former PNC employee said bosses allowed them to take money"...that's not technically a lie, "Joe Smith" did, indeed say that, but if I deliberately omit the context and my motivations for doing that were specifically to get other people to believe something misleading about PNC, then it's really no different than had I just flat-out lied and made the bogus claim.


I think part of the problem with the ACORN situation (if I remember correctly) was that, in addition to the misleading tactics, he was doing hidden camera recording in a two-party consent jurisdiction, meaning he would've had to get the employees consent and notified them that were being recorded.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

I remembered the ACORN one, but that wasn't the one I was thinking of...

I believe you were referring to this case: Project Veritas faces off in court with Democratic activist

If so, PV was not sued for defamation or libel, but rather for fraud (related to their operative's misrepresentation of herself to gain employment at the organization) and violation of wiretapping laws.

ACORN was primarily a defamation suit, but it was settled out of court, so you can't draw any legal conclusions from the outcome.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I believe you were referring to this case: Project Veritas faces off in court with Democratic activist

If so, PV was not sued for defamation or libel, but rather for fraud (related to their operative's misrepresentation of herself to gain employment at the organization) and violation of wiretapping laws.

ACORN was primarily a defamation suit, but it was settled out of court, so you can't draw any legal conclusions from the outcome.

Actually that one's not ringing a bell either... I could be remembering the details from two different ones blended together. I distinctly remember there being some facet of the story where the "mark" thought he was on a date, got buzzed, and espoused a bunch of exaggerated and/or false info for the purposes of making himself sound important. And then that extraneous info was conveniently left out, and it was reported as "XYZ Corp employee says his company does this"



While it wasn't the particular avenue any of the aforementioned cases went down, it seems like with regards to this specific case against media matters, X may have to rely on the rather "untested" avenue that is "Libel by Omission"...to which, not many cases have been tried in that realm.

The Washington State Supreme Court ruled on one such case some years back (it was a case where a store owner had a mentally handicapped man thrown out of the store and charged with trespassing, and the local news affiliate reported on that true fact, while leaving out the fact that the homeless man had previously made physical threats toward the store owner's wife the last time he was in there...the end result was that it made him and his business look really bad)

The court said to meet the criteria, the plaintiff would have to effectively demonstrate two things
"the communication left a false impression that would be contradicted by the inclusion of omitted facts.” (it met that criteria)
“the language must not only be reasonably read to impart the false innuendo, but it must also affirmatively suggest that the author intends or endorses the inference.”
(the Washington State Case Failed the 2nd test because the plaintiff couldn't prove that the local news affiliate even had any knowledge of the extraneous past circumstances, therefore they couldn't prove intent of misleading on the part of the network as in order to intentionally omit for that purpose, they would've had to have known about it in the first place)

I think one could make a case that the Media Matters tactics could potentially both of those boxes.

"IF" the judge in this case uses a similar two-pronged standard.

The first one ... if people knew that MM created that outcome on purpose through algorithm manipulation, instead of believing it's just something that randomly happened, that could leave people with a very different impression of what happened.

For the second one, if Media Matters was going out of their way to take that false impression (that they manufactured), and provide that information to advertisers for the purposes of saying "you should stop advertising on X, look what we found", it would be hard to claim that the omission was inadvertent, and not for the explicit purposes of hurting X.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Actually that one's not ringing a bell either... I could be remembering the details from two different ones blended together. I distinctly remember there being some facet of the story where the "mark" thought he was on a date, got buzzed, and espoused a bunch of exaggerated and/or false info for the purposes of making himself sound important. And then that extraneous info was conveniently left out, and it was reported as "XYZ Corp employee says his company does this"

That sounds like their Pfizer video, but no lawsuit was ever filed on that one that I'm aware of.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Actually that one's not ringing a bell either... I could be remembering the details from two different ones blended together. I distinctly remember there being some facet of the story where the "mark" thought he was on a date, got buzzed, and espoused a bunch of exaggerated and/or false info for the purposes of making himself sound important. And then that extraneous info was conveniently left out, and it was reported as "XYZ Corp employee says his company does this"

That happened and is described on their wikipedia page, but it doesn't say anything about a suit arising from it.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

A year or so ago Elon declared himself a free speech absolutist. He's proven to be anything but.

A guy who lives in Austin having his San Francisco based company sue a D.C. based nonprofit in Fort Worth is a textbook example of judge shopping.

Old Twitter was anything but free speech. It's been nailed on White House and agency connections to silence speech.
Musk has changed all that. And you can file suit wherever you have a presence. Actually less convenient for both Musk and Media Matters, but one can file a federal suit in any location where there is a business presence to establish jurisdiction. We shall see if this stands, as MM is likely to argue against it in order to get a more favorable leftwing venue.

Musk lives in Texas. And Tesla is in Texas.

 

[USincognito]

Old Twitter was anything but free speech.

That is the claim.

It's been nailed on White House and agency connections to silence speech.

Exactly. Like when Donald tried to get Chrissy Teigen's Tweet removed, or when so many Donald White House requests to censor or reinstate came down that Twitter had to make a database to keep track of them.

I assume you're referring to the Biden campaign, again campaign, request to take down nude photos of Hunter and are equating that to the "White House".

Musk lives in Texas. And Tesla is in Texas.

He lives in AUSTIN, not Fort Wirth, and Tesla's HQ is utterly irrelevant to a lawsuit involving Twitter.

 

[Ana the Ist]

So much for free speech absolutism.

Huh?

Definite case of judge shopping.

Definite case of slander.

On the upside though, he's going to.be able to claimna lot of damages....potentially bury that website for good.

 

[Gene2memE]

Huh?



Definite case of slander.

On the upside though, he's going to.be able to claimna lot of damages....potentially bury that website for good.

No, it really is a case of judge shopping. We'll, not so much shopping, as there's a single federal judge in this district.

 

[Matt5]

Musk's X sues liberal advocacy group Media Matters over its report on ads next to hate groups' posts

Elon Musk’s X filed a lawsuit against Media Matters for America, saying it manufactured a report to show advertisers’ posts alongside neo-Nazi posts.

apnews.com

IBM, NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast said last week that they stopped advertising on X after the Media Matters report said their ads were appearing alongside material praising Nazis. It was a fresh setback as the platform tries to win back big brands and their ad dollars, X’s main source of revenue.

But San Francisco-based X says in its complaint filed in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, that Media Matters “knowingly and maliciously” portrayed ads next to hateful material “as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform.”

X’s complaint claims that Media Matters manipulated algorithms on the platform to create images of advertisers’ paid posts next to racist, incendiary content. The juxtapositions, according to the complaint, were “manufactured, inorganic and extraordinarily rare.”

It says Media Matters did this by using X accounts that just followed X users known to produce “extreme fringe content” and accounts owned by X’s major advertisers. This, the complaint says, led to a feed aimed at producing side-by-side placements that Media Matters could then screen shot in an effort to alienate X’s advertisers.


If this is true, it wouldn't be the first time Media Matters has engaged in some shenanigans that crossed the line from what they claim to be, which is a "media watchdog that holds conservatives to account", into the territory of "intentionally producing/fabricating outcomes that gives themselves a story to report on" in order to "prove their point".

The demand for hate is greater than the supply. Same goes for racism.

Anybody notice how the definition of racism has changed? Merely pointing out anything that shows a minority group in a bad light is now racism. Truth is irrelevant. This covers every group except whites. White women are covered under sexism.

In reality, showing the left in a bad light is some kind of -ism. Anything goes for the non-left, including gaming the system to generate ads in the wrong place.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The demand for hate is greater than the supply. Same goes for racism.

Anybody notice how the definition of racism has changed? Merely pointing out anything that shows a minority group in a bad light is now racism. Truth is irrelevant. This covers every group except whites. White women are covered under sexism.

In reality, showing the left in a bad light is some kind of -ism. Anything goes for the non-left, including gaming the system to generate ads in the wrong place.

It's not so much that the definitions have changed, it's that words/terms have been watered down to include anything/everything that someone doesn't like.

I see different pockets of society leveraging that technique pretty regularly.

For example: If you talk to some evangelicals now, they'll define literally everything that doesn't fit in their comfort bubble as a form of "indoctrination" or "grooming"

If you talk to some on the more radical part of the progressive wing, everything constitutes an bad "-ism" of some kind.

 

[linux.poet]

Meaning, if an Arabic Muslim (who are more marginalized than Jews in US culture) makes those statements, it's given more lenient treatment than if a White Christian (who's far less marginalized than Jews in US culture) makes those exact same statements.

I think the difference is that White Christians haven't had Jews evict them from their homes, force them into refugee camps, or take away land that has been passed down for generations.

The Palestinian Arabs have. It makes some sense that the Palestinian Arabs would believe that because that is what they have experienced. Information --> beliefs. If you've spent your entire life in a refugee camp in poverty because the Jews put you there, you're more likely to believe that they have malicious motives. If you've spent your entire life with the Jews bombing you and killing your family and friends and leaving holes in your houses and apartment complexes, are you going to conclude that the Jews have your best interest at heart?

Therefore, those two groups should be treated differently when they say those anti-Jewish statements. The White Christians are saying them out of "the Jews killed Jesus" hate, while the Palestinians are saying that because that's what they have experienced in their lives. They are sick and tired of being abused and mistreated by the Jews.

There's a difference between hating someone who hasn't done anything to harm you, and hating your enemy when you are fighting a war against them. We should recognize that in public discourse.

Did these kinds of events occur under old Twitter? And then stay public?

Yes, they did, but when the public made an outcry, the offending posts were removed. I've been on Twitter/X off and on since 2016, so I would know. The old owners tried to moderate the platform but struggled, especially with ISIS.

Unfortunately any social media platform that relies on advertising must moderate content. The problem is that these platforms are so big that moderation is a hard job. You have to curate the content to meet the standards of advertisers. Unfortunately, nobody is posting on social media to help Twitter land more advertisers - they are looking to advertise their own brands for free in their feed instead. Those are the decent Twitter users. The rest are the people who actually use the platform for news or people looking to share or curate information for in-depth research. The use cases do overlap, but the point is that nobody on Twitter cares about the ad people except for Twitter. And since Twitter is political and short-form, you're just going to get more of this constant political nastiness that ad companies don't like, which is why Twitter tends to lose money unless Donald Trump is posting.

 

[KCfromNC]

Old Twitter was anything but free speech. It's been nailed on White House and agency connections to silence speech.

I'm not sure that simply receiving request from Donald's administration to censor posts counts as being "nailed".

 

[Ana the Ist]

That is the claim.

Exactly. Like when Donald tried to get Chrissy Teigen's Tweet removed, or when so many Donald White House requests to censor or reinstate came down that Twitter had to make a database to keep track of them.

I assume you're referring to the Biden campaign, again campaign, request to take down nude photos of Hunter and are equating that to the "White House".

He lives in AUSTIN, not Fort Wirth, and Tesla's HQ is utterly irrelevant to a lawsuit involving Twitter.

No, it really is a case of judge shopping. We'll, not so much shopping, as there's a single federal judge in this district.

I don't see what that has to do with it.

If he has data showing media matters did what he claimed....they're going to have a rough day in any court.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I'm not sure that simply receiving request from Donald's administration to censor posts counts as being "nailed".

Haven't seen the new testimony on the Twitter files about the FBI's election interference huh?

 

[KCfromNC]

Haven't seen the new testimony on the Twitter files about the FBI's election interference huh?

Not sure why you'd ask - I described the testimony in the post you're quoting.