Musk threatens to sue the Anti-Defamation League over misplaced income on X (Twitter)
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lon Musk has threatened to take authorized motion in opposition to antisemitism marketing campaign group the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), accusing it of “trying to kill” his social media platform X.
Mr Musk stated the ADL had “falsely accused” each him and the X platform of being antisemitic, inflicting a considerable drop within the social media platform’s promoting income in consequence.
In a sequence of posts on Monday evening, the billionaire proprietor of the platform previously referred to as Twitter stated the corporate’s advert income within the United States was down 60%, which Mr Musk stated was “primarily due to pressure on advertisers by the ADL”.
“To clear our platform’s name on the matter of antisemitism, it looks like we have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League … oh the irony!” Mr Musk stated.
He accused the group of “destroying half the value of the company, so roughly $22 billion” and of constructing “unfounded accusations” which spark controversy and trigger advertisers to pause working with X.
“Advertisers avoid controversy, so all that is needed for ADL to crush our US & European ad revenue is to make unfounded accusations. They have much less power in Asia, so our ad revenue there is still strong.
“This ‘controversy’ causes advertisers to ‘pause’, but that pause is permanent until ADL gives the green light, which they will not do without us agreeing to secretly suspend or shadowban any account they don’t like.”
The ADL has been contacted for touch upon Mr Musk’s claims
“To be super clear, I’m pro free speech, but against antisemitism of any kind,” Mr Musk added.
Various civil rights and different marketing campaign teams have raised considerations about content material on X since Mr Musk accomplished his takeover of the positioning final 12 months, with many warning that his help of absolute free speech and the reinstatement of beforehand suspended accounts would enable extra hateful content material to unfold on the platform.
In the wake of Mr Musk’s takeover, a variety of firms withdrew or decreased their promoting on X over their considerations about these points.
According to analysis printed final month by Jewish security charity the Community Security Trust (CST), incidents of anti-Jewish hate on-line rose by greater than a 3rd within the first six months of 2023 – with two thirds of these incidents happening on X.
Also final month, X launched authorized motion in opposition to one other organisation, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) over comparable claims that it was driving advertisers away from X by publishing analysis round hate speech on the platform.