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6 months ago

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News Democrat Politics first amendment judiciary social media

Elon Musk gathering allies
By Terry A. Hurlbut
Over the weekend, Elon Musk threatened to sue Media Matters for America, after several big advertisers pulled their accounts. This happened after Media Matters published two stories alleging that Platform X runs ads next to antisemitic and racist content, without the knowledge or consent of the advertisers. Thus far no new case filing with “Media Matters” or “X Corp” as a party, has appeared today at Court Listener or in the new-case feed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. That doesn’t mean Musk won’t file; it simply means he hasn’t yet, perhaps because the pleadings aren’t ready to file. But while he waits, several entities with an interest in this matter are lining up by Musk’s side.
Why Elon Musk wants to sue
To review: Elon Musk said he would file “the split second court is open.”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1725771191644758037
He didn’t say which court, but CNAV assumes this is a federal case. Media Matters for America has its offices in Washington, D.C.
Media Matters alleged – twice – that X places advertising from Apple, IBM, Oracle, and other large companies next to antisemitic content. The specific content at issue is this statement saying that certain immigration advocates, who happen to be Jewish, are facilitating the large-scale replacement of whites by non-whites in America, through large-scale immigration.
https://twitter.com/breakingbaht/status/1724892505647296620
For the record, CNAV does not hold to the obvious “critical theory” of race relations, that suggests that whites and non-whites can never coexist. That theory also suggests that diligence, honesty, and “work ethic” are inherently white – and racist – values. Finally the theory fails to account for the re-emergence of Christianity among persons of all races and situations. Christianity also encourages its adherents to start families and raise children.
Elon Musk, perhaps not considering any of the above, replied back to that post that the accountholder had shared “the actual truth.” Why he so chose, CNAV will not speculate – though he is on record as warning people that the no one is having enough children. That is the likely basis of all the allegations.
Withdrawal of advertising
In any case, the companies Media Matters named, have withdrawn their advertising, and so have many others over the weekend. That might construe as damages from libel, slander, and/or defamation of character. But Elon Musk is alleging something else: manipulation of X’s algorithms to detect ad placement that would otherwise be undetectable. And what is normally undetectable, does not “perform” and probably has very low “conversion.” Specifically, he said Media Matters:
• “Created an alternative account and curated the posts and advertising appearing on the account’s timeline.” The purpose? “To misinform advertisers about the placement of their posts.”
• “Refreshed their timelines to find a rare instance of ads serving next to the content they chose to follow.” Elon Musk claims to have logs supporting this allegation.
• Highlighted fifty problematic ad placements out of 5.5 billion ad impressions on the day in question. That amounts to less than one-millionth of a percent.
• Highlighted nine posts they felt should not appear on any platform. Only one of these violates the current X Rules.
Today Reuters ran a story on the lawsuit, mainly repeating what it said over the weekend and suggesting that the lawsuit would fail for lack of merit.
More evidence – and a criminal investigation?
On the morning of November 18, Joe Benarroch, an executive at X, posted more details of what Media Matters did. Unaccountably, he deleted his post, but not before Jack Posobiec at Human Events screencapped it. “Poso” shared the screencap on his own account:
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1726268467270041756
Reaction came in almost at once and continued to today.
https://twitter.com/StephenM/status/1726281362108538955
https://twitter.com/AGAndrewBailey/status/1726356260088426894
Stephen Miller, who once advised President Donald J. Trump, is the founder of America First Legal. He agreed with Jack Posobiec and called what Media Matters did something stronger: fraud. Elon Musk found interesting Miller’s remark that fraud is both a civil tort and a criminal offense.
Andrew Bailey is the current Attorney General of Missouri. He succeeded Eric Schmitt, who originally filed the landmark case of Missouri v. Biden, when Schmitt became Missouri’s junior Senator. Bailey has been running the Missouri lawsuit ever since – and now says he is “looking into” the manipulation allegations. Both Cassandra MacDonald at The Gateway Pundit and Katie Daviscourt at The Post Millennial have reported on this.
Could Elon Musk be waiting to file his lawsuit until after General Bailey’s investigation moves further along? Perhaps.
Elon Musk has friends
But Lawyers Miller and Bailey are not necessarily Musk’s only friends. Four other influencers and media heads have lined up to support him. When X lost its first advertising accounts, Andrew Tate pledged $1 million a month in support. He, Tim Pool, and “Jeremy from The Quartering” all appeared together for nearly two hours to discuss it. The Quartering released a shorter video earlier announcing the discussion and the alliance. In this video he mentioned influencer Benny Johnson and the Babylon Bee also.
https://rumble.com/embed/v3uarkk/?pub=4teej
Chris Pavlovski, head of Rumble, has not been idle, either. Recall that after Elon announced his suit, Pavlovski left this cryptic post:
https://twitter.com/chrispavlovski/status/1725895920829530527
That afternoon, Pavlovski noticed something else, namely that Media Matters attacked his company, too.
https://twitter.com/chrispavlovski/status/1725995743100498261
Yesterday evening, he amplified his “cavalry” remark.
https://twitter.com/chrispavlovski/status/1726385216078422110
This evening he appeared to be threatening the self-describe leftist “ad watchdog” CheckMyAdsHQ and both its co-founders:
https://twitter.com/chrispavlovski/status/1726737190036635761
He also accused Media Matters of misrepresenting Rumble as well as X. In his embedded statement he called for a Congressional investigation.
https://twitter.com/chrispavlovski/status/1726745030470119588
That would indicate that Rumble has had its own problems, not only with Media Matters but also with CheckMyAdsHQ. (And perhaps others like them, though he has thus far named no others.)
One other item might or might not be significant or relevant. Rumble reported coming under a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack at 1:57 p.m. EST today.
Analysis
When does boycott advocacy or organization become tortious business interference? Generally when the advocate or organizer is repeating an allegation he or she knows is false. That goes double when the allegation results from manipulation of a social media platform. That kind of thing violates the Terms of Service of virtually any Web site open to the public. And in this case, Media Matters might have committed criminal fraud. That’s what the Attorney General of Missouri is investigating.
This drama further illustrates the division of the American public into two publics. The division follows political lines and extends to “consumer politics.” The specific allegation of antisemitism doesn’t matter – because Media Matters has not seen fit to comment on expressions of sympathy for HAMAS that also appear on the platform. Compared to such posts, the particular post Media Matters cited is positively tame. What really “matters” to Media Matters is that Elon Musk fired all the “woke moderators” when he bought Twitter. The left never forgave him for that – and so they laid a trap for him and his company.
Similarly their quarrel with Rumble is that it exists. Rumble’s content standards are absurdly simple in comparison to those of, say, YouTube. Media Matters won’t be happy until no one may express any opinions contrary to theirs.
These should make for very interesting court cases – and Congressional investigations.
Link to:
The article:
https://cnav.news/2023/11/20/editorial/talk/elon-musk-gathering-allies/