Lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's X against nonprofit CCDH thrown out by judge on free speech grounds

A federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's X against the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate, writing in a judgement Monday that the "case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech."

X sued the research group in July, accusing it of implementing a "scare campaign" to drive away advertisers. The company also accused CCDH of improperly accessing data from the platform and selectively picking posts to "falsely claim" that X is "overwhelmed with harmful content."

The suit followed studies published by CCDH in which the British firm, which tracks hate speech and online misinformation, found an increase in antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate speech on X after Musk took over the company, formerly known as Twitter, in late 2022.

Judge Charles Breyer in the Northern District of California wrote in his ruling that while X claimed the case was about breach of contract and unlawful data scraping, it was clearly about speech.

"Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff's true purpose," Breyer wrote. "Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech."

In one analysis, the CCDH researchers evaluated 100 different premium Twitter Blue accounts and found the platform failed to act on 99% of hate speech posted by those users. CCDH also found that Twitter failed to act on 89% of anti-Jewish hate speech and 97% of anti-Muslim hate speech on the platform.

In his order, Judge Breyer cited California's anti-SLAPP statute, which