A U.S. district judge has ruled that Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) can move forward with its lawsuit against left-wing censorship group Media Matters, setting a trial date for April 7, 2025.
Independent Reports U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor has given Elon Musk's X permission to move forward with its lawsuit against left-wing blacklist organization Media Matters. The lawsuit, filed by X in November 2023, accuses Media Matters of sparking an exodus of advertisers from the social media platform by publishing misleading stories that X allowed top brands to run their ads alongside anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi content.
The article in question, published by Media Matters, claimed that Musk has increasingly “become drawn to white supremacist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories” since he bought Facebook in 2022. The analysis further argued that this change in content moderation policies has led to major brands' ads appearing next to inflammatory content.
In response to the article, several big-name brands, including Apple, IBM and Disney, pulled their advertising from the platform. Musk, who recently supported Donald Trump in the presidential election, called Media Matters “pure evil” when the lawsuit was first filed.
X's lawsuit doesn't dispute the fact that some top brands' ads ran near the controversial content, but it alleges that Media Matters manipulated X's systems to create highly unlikely ad pairings that would normally be filtered out by the platform's advertising tools. The lawsuit alleges that the harmful combinations “were shown to just one audience (out of over 500 million) across X: Media Matters.”
In a statement to The Independent, Media Matters maintained that its analysis of X and its content policies remains valid. The organization's president, Angelo Carusone, called the lawsuit “frivolous” and “designed to intimidate and silence X's critics.” He added that Media Matters stands by its reporting and is confident it will prevail in court.
Relatedly, Judge O'Connor denied Media Matters' request to compel Musk to list Tesla as a party in the Company X lawsuit. The judge said there was no evidence showing Tesla has a direct financial interest in the outcome of the lawsuit.
This lawsuit isn't the only legal battle X is currently facing. In a separate lawsuit, X is suing global advertising association GARM and its member companies, including Unilever, Mark's, and CVS Health. However, according to Reuters, Judge O'Connor recused herself from the case, citing her investment in Unilever.
The trial is scheduled for April 7, 2025, giving both sides ample time to prepare arguments and gather evidence to support their positions. As the legal battle unfolds, industry experts, advertisers, and free speech advocates will be closely watching the case as it could set an important precedent for how social media platforms handle controversial content and their liability to advertisers and users.
Learn more The Independent is here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering free speech and online censorship.
