Musk's X Corp lawsuit against hate speech watchdog dismissed

Elon Musk plea dismissal: A single-judge bench in US on Monday dismissed Elon Musk's lawsuit against a nprofit group that faulted him for allowing a rise in hate speech on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
It was evident that Musk's X Corp sued Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) because billionaire did t like its criticism, and thought its research would hurt X's im and scare vertisers away, US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco observed.  

"X Corp has brought this case in order to punish CCDH for CCDH publications that criticized X Corp--and perhaps in order to dissue ors who might wish to eng in such criticism," Breyer wrote. "It is impossible to re complaint and t conclude that X Corp is far more concerned about CCDH's speech than it is its data collection methods," he ded. X, in a statement, said it plans to appeal.

decision is a blow to Musk, world's third-richest person, who has for many years styled himself as a free-speech champion. But since paying $44 billion for Twitter in October 2022, he has faced wide criticism for firing too many people who policed misinformation, and from civil rights groups for allowing more harmful and abusive posts.

Imran Ahmed, chief executive of Center for Countering Digital Hate, in a statement, said Breyer's decision affirms his group's right “to hold accountable social media companies for decisions y make behind closed doors.” Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for nprofit, said decision shows that Musk "cant bend rule of law to his will."

Musk and X have also faced many or lawsuits, including claims by former Twitter executives that Musk improperly withheld severance, and by vendors claiming y haven't been paid. Tesla, electric vehicle maker that Musk runs, has separately faced several lawsuits claiming it tolerated harassment of workers. It has denied those claims.

X accused center of breaching its 2019 user contract by scraping and cherry-picking data to create false and misleing reports that Musk turned X into a haven for hate speech, extremism, and misinformation. According to X's complaint filed last July, nprofit designed its "scare campaign" to drive away vertisers, and caused tens of millions of dollars in dams.

(With Reuters inputs)