Elon Musk, the owner of the platform formerly known as Twitter and now called X, is striking back at a left-wing outfit apparently intent on smearing the accomplishments he made in social media.
The billionaire entrepreneur sent a letter to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) threatening legal action for claims they made against his company. The group touts its work as combating so-called hate speech, disinformation, and extremism on social media platforms.
Musk threatened a legal response against false narratives against X.
X Corp. sent the letter on July 20 accusing the outfit of spreading “a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically.”
The letter referenced CCDH research published in June through a series of eight papers. It said the social media platform took no action against 99% of the 100 Twitter Blue accounts it reported for supposedly “tweeting hate.”
Musk’s letter categorized the papers as “false, misleading or both.” It also took the group to task over what it termed as improper methodology.
Businessman @ElonMusk has threatened to sue a group whose reports were often cited by the Biden administration as government officials pressured #BigTech companies to censor users. https://t.co/ZQripY1GZV
— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) July 31, 2023
The company’s defenders — and there are many — counter CCDH claims by noting that any changes enacted enhanced freedom of speech on the platform. An X blog post accused the organization of trying to divert advertisers and “prevent public dialogue.”
However, its efforts may be working.
X’s advertising revenue suffered since Musk acquired the company for $44 billion last year. A review of U.S. ad revenue from April 1 to the first week of May this year showed an income of $88 million.
That’s 59% lower than a year ago, before the acquisition. Some critics point to advertising being accepted from gambling sites and for marijuana products. Still others decry the proliferation of conservative voices on the platform that once overtly censored them.
What is clear is that the concept of “disinformation” is almost entirely one deployed by the political and social left.
Groups such as CCDH expend vast amounts of energy and resources targeting conservatives and libertarians for exercising their First Amendment rights.
And troubling content is hardly the exclusive problem of X.
From Chinese-owned TikTok to Zuckerberg-owned Facebook, the human element of social media platforms means there will be something disagreeable for virtually anyone. The question is, how much censorship will the left be allowed to get away with.
The answer on X is not much. And therein lies the problem.
