Misinformation Inc. has had quite a time of it over the past few years while functioning as another propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. But now it appears someone is finally fighting back, and his name is Elon Musk. The owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has threatened legal action against a key player in the misinformation industry.
Musk contacted the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit organization that works to address issues like hate speech, misinformation, or alleged extremism on social media. This group conducts research and compiles reports to advocate for policies to impede the spreading of misinformation online. Musk wrote to the center threatening legal action for spreading false stories about his company.
Elon has been threatening legal action against his competitors in tech, as well as employees and Twitter users, for over a year. Now, he is also targeting an organization that studies misinformation, hate speech, and social media.
On July 20, X Corporation (parent company of the social media company) wrote to the Center for Countering Digital Hate accusing them of making “a series of troubling, unfounded allegations that seem calculated in harming Twitter and its digital advertising business specifically”. They also threatened legal action.
The letter cited research published by the Center for Countering Digital Hate in June examining hate speech on Twitter, which Mr. Musk has renamed X.com. The research consisted of eight papers, including one that found that Twitter had taken no action against 99 percent of the 100 Twitter Blue accounts the center reported for “tweeting hate.” The letter called the research “false, misleading, or both” and said the organization had used improper methodology.
In the letter, it was also stated that Twitter competitors or foreign governments are funding the center “to support a secondary agenda”.
This has affected the company’s advertising revenue, among other things:
Twitter advertising is struggling under Mr. Musk, who bought the company last summer. U.S. advertising revenues from April 1 to the first week of May were $88m. This represents a 59 percent drop from the prior year. Musk’s recent changes may have scared off advertisers as he removed restrictions on what was allowed and not allowed and increased the number of advertisements for online gambling and cannabis.
The hard left has benefitted from misinformation because they have never met an opposing view that they did not wish to censor. Labeling opposing views as “misinformation”, ‘disinformation’, or ‘disinformation’ was a clever method to get people to accept progressive narratives on everything from COVID-19 to elections. This is a cottage industry.
Organizations like CCDH are known to lie in order to smear their political opponents. Conservatives and liberals are targeted almost exclusively online to have them banned or censored. CCDH’s targeting of Twitter is no surprise.
Twitter is not the only social media platform that struggles to enforce its terms of service. All platforms struggle with this. Under Musk, the company’s new focus revolves around freedom of speech. Progressives are most concerned with this issue.
