After Advertisers Flee: Musk’s “X” Sues Journalists

Elon Musk’s online platform ‘X’ has sued the authors of a critical report that last week scared away major advertising clients such as IBM, Apple and Disney.

The Twitter successor accuses the organization Media Matters for America of using targeted manipulation to ensure that ads from well-known companies appear next to Nazi posts and anti-Semitic statements.

Media Matters boss Angelo Carusone responded that his organization remains behind the report and looks forward to winning in court.

‘X’ claims in the lawsuit that Media Matters artificially created a situation where the ads appeared next to posts with extremist content – ​​for example, by specifically selecting profiles and updating the ad regularly.

However, the organization kept this secret and thus gave the impression that it had discovered the links. In previous similar accusations from Media Matters, other users were also able to find advertisements from well-known companies next to extremist content without manipulation.

Ads next to hateful content

Companies and organizations have only limited influence over the posts their advertisements are placed next to. The ads are shown based on age groups, specific areas or user interests.

To avoid a negative environment for their brands, advertisers depend primarily on ‘X’ consistently keeping hate speech off the platform – or at least not allowing ads to be placed next to it.

Otherwise, a user may scroll through an extremist account and see ads based on their usual interests.

Other online services have also had similar problems with their advertising clients in the past, for example Google’s video platform YouTube. At that time, content supervision was tightened to win back advertising customers.

Lawsuit filed in conservative Texas

‘X’ is headquartered in San Francisco and its official headquarters in Nevada – but Musk filed the lawsuit in Texas, a state where the government and large parts of the population have very conservative views.

At the same time, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a known proponent of right-wing political views, opened an investigation into media affairs.

Not only is Musk’s space company SpaceX active in Texas, he also had the headquarters of the electric car manufacturer Tesla, which he runs, moved there from California. (sda/dpa)