Twitter has threatened to sue a nonprofit organization that keeps track of hate speech
The Center for Countering Digital Hate said it got a letter from X, the company that owns Twitter, saying that it was trying to hurt the social network with its study.
Elon Musk has threatened to sue tech rivals, workers, and people who use Twitter, which he owns, over the past year. Now, he is also going after a group that looks into hate speech and false information on social media.
The social media company’s parent company, X Corp., sent a letter on July 20 to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that does research on social media. In the letter, X Corp. accused the group of making “a series of troubling and unfounded claims that seem designed to hurt Twitter and its digital advertising business in particular” and threatened to sue the group.
In the letter, the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s June study of hate speech on Twitter, which Mr. Musk called X.com, was mentioned. Eight papers made up the study. One of them found that Twitter had done nothing about 99 out of the 100 Twitter Blue accounts that the center said were “tweeting hate.” In the letter, the study was called “false, misleading, or both” and the group was said to have used the wrong method.
In the letter, it was also said that the center was paid for by Twitter’s rivals or by governments from other countries “to support an ulterior agenda.”
Imran Ahmed, the head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said, “Elon Musk’s actions are a brazen attempt to shut down honest criticism and independent research.” He also said that Mr. Musk wants to “stop the flow of negative stories” and get back on good terms with sponsors.
The center also said that it did not take money from tech companies, states, or anyone else connected to them.
Since Mr. Musk bought Twitter last year, its advertising business has been having a hard time. From April 1 to the first week of May in the U.S., ad sales were $88 million, which is 59 percent less than the same time last year. Advertisers may have been scared off by Mr. Musk’s changes to the social network, like getting rid of rules about what can and can’t be said on the service and putting more ads for online gambling and marijuana goods.
Linda Yaccarino, a former top advertising executive for NBCUniversal, was chosen by Mr. Musk in May to be Twitter’s CEO.
At least three court threats or actions have been taken by X Corp. in the last two months, including the letter. It sent a letter to Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, in May, saying that the tech giant was misusing its data. This month, it also sent a message to Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, saying that it had used Twitter’s trade secrets to make a new social app called Threads.
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