Social media giant Twitter, now known as “X,” has launched a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit organization that has publicly criticized Twitter for its approach to managing so-called hate speech. This move comes after Twitter had already publicly revealed its intentions to initiate legal proceedings.
The suit, which was filed in a San Francisco federal court, alleges that the CCDH has intentionally been attempting to deter advertisers from associating with Twitter. This is reportedly being achieved through the publication of damaging reports scrutinizing Twitter’s handling of offensive content.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
A central claim of the lawsuit is that the CCDH broke federal hacking laws and Twitter’s terms of service. This was ostensibly done by scraping data from the Twitter platform and encouraging an anonymous individual to collect improper information about Twitter that was supplied to a brand monitoring provider.
Moreover, Twitter accuses the CCDH of undertaking a campaign to mute users on its platform by highlighting their viewpoints shared on social media.
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In response to these accusations, the CCDH’s CEO Imran Ahmed made his skepticism clear by suggesting that the lawsuit, particularly claims regarding the anonymous individual, were akin to a conspiracy theory.
Ahmed highlighted that their organization just reflects online behavior on the platform, sparking them to consider if they favor their image. The CEO added that recent negative perceptions are the result of the company seeking a free speech platform, which he implied had attracted increased “hate speech” and “misinformation.”
