X can proceed to trial in case against Media Matters after Texas judge ruling | Hacker News Reader

X can proceed to trial in case against Media Matters after Texas judge ruling

cnbc.com

15 pointsivewonyoung11 comments

This is ludicrous. Media Matters provided evidence to back their claims. There's no legitimate question of whether they lied about them or knowingly published incorrect statements. Their assertion, demonstrated, is that Twitter ran ads for major companies next to horrifically racist content. This isn't really disputed past Musk basically saying "uh-uh did not!"

This lawsuit is purely about shutting down criticism.

Free speech absolutism in practice.

It may be free speech, but a lot of companies would not want to advertise next to racist tweets. That's their choice.

I think they were sarcastically referring to Musk’s claim to support free speech, all while suing his critics and his advertisers for using theirs.

"maliciously fabricated side-by-side images of various advertisers’ posts on Plaintiff’s social media platform X depicted next to neo-Nazi or 2 other extremist content, and portrayed these designed images as if they were what the average user experiences on the X platform. Plaintiff asserts that Defendants proceeded with this course of action in an effort to publicly portray X as a social media platform dominated by neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism, and thereby alienate major advertisers, publishers, and users away from the X platform, intending to harm it."

It depends on how you read fabricated. I have no legal background so I have no idea exactly how to interpret it. Does it mean that they made it up? Or does it mean that they use roundabout ways to achieve it that a normal user would never do but then imply this happens very regularly?

I think they probably mean the second one for it to make sense to me. In that context I can see the argument making some kind of sense. I do not know if they will win but I can see why the judge allowed it to go to actual court.

One District Court judge ruled against a similar suit: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/08/26/judge-preliminarily-blo...

As far as I know, Media Matters never represented that n% of major advertisers' ads were shown next to racist content, just that some ads were, and that seems undisputed. I see it as similar to a tabloid publishing a picture of someone breaking the law: "we never said you do that most nights, just that you did on least this one occasion".

> One District Court judge ruled against a similar suit: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/08/26/judge-preliminarily-blo...

Thanks for the link. The lawsuit looks slightly different to me. They blocked a CID request where they got a request for a bunch of data about their operations. The requester did not manage to make a good case as to why that request had merit and therefore should not get counted as abusive.

The X lawsuit directly alleges that media matters tried to cause financial harm. It looks like X simply made a better argument as to why they had a good case against Media Matters.

> As far as I know, Media Matters never represented that n% of major advertisers' ads were shown next to racist content, just that some ads were, and that seems undisputed.

I had understood it like this as well. Musk alleges that they got the example through contrived means and that they did it purely to hurt X financially.

I do not think he will win but I do think the case merits examination.

>> As far as I know, Media Matters never represented that n% of major advertisers' ads were shown next to racist content, just that some ads were, and that seems undisputed.

> I had understood it like this as well. Musk alleges that they got the example through contrived means and that they did it purely to hurt X financially.

I'm not sure about the other claims that X/Twitter alleges, but (in the US) succeeding on the claim of business disparagement (a type of libel) requires demonstrating actual malice. Unlike in common parlance, actual malice doesn't mean ill will or intent to harm someone [1]. It means that the defendant made a false statement of fact despite knowing that the statement or false or despite having significant doubts about the truth of the statement.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice

Venue shopping should be illegal. Musk, and many other SLAAP plantiffs, routinely choose this judge because they know it's one of the few districts these cases won't be dismissed outright because of judge O’Connor.

Letting the case go forward in Texas because a couple ads happened to be shown in Texas is the height of absurdity & everyone involved is fleecing the justice system with a sham like that.

The Docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68023366/x-corp-v-media...

The actual ruling: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.38...

It is consistently infuriating that reports on law don't actually link to the documents they report on.

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