The left-wing media watchdog group Media Matters for America (MMFA) has a sordid record of not only publishing absurd "fact-checks” but of bullying businesses that dare to advertise on conservative outlets, or even platforms they don’t approve it.
And Elon Musk has had enough of it.
At 2 a.m. ET on Saturday, Musk threatened to file a 'thermonuclear lawsuit' against Media Matters. "The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,” Musk wrote in a post on X/Twitter.
This week Media Matters for America posted a story that completely misrepresented the real user experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers.
Above everything, including profit, X works to protect the public's right to free speech. But for speech to be truly free, we must also have the freedom to see or hear things that some people may consider objectionable. We believe that everyone has the right to make up their own minds about what to read, watch, or listen to - because that's the power of freedom of speech.
Despite our clear and consistent position, X has seen a number of attacks from activist groups like Media Matters and legacy media outlets who seek to undermine freedom of expression on our platform because they perceive it as a threat to their ideological narrative and those of their financial supporters. These groups try to use their influence to attack our revenue streams by deceiving advertisers on X.
Musk clarified in a subsequent post that the lawsuit will target Media Matters, "their board, their donors, their network of dark money, all of them."
On Friday, Media Matters published a report accusing X/Twitter of placing ads for brands like Amazon, Comcast Xfinity, NBA Mexico, NBCUniversal, and others next to content with white nationalist hashtags, prompting an exodus of advertisers.
But, the research used by Media Matters was completely contrived,
Musk laid out the facts about the tactics Media Matters employed to manipulate public perception and mislead X/Twitter advertisers. Musk revealed that MMFA created an alternate account "and curated the posts and advertising appearing on the account's timeline to misinform advertisers about the placement of their posts. These contrived experiences could be applied to any platform.” According to Musk, MMFA artificially increased ad impressions by repeatedly refreshing timelines to find instances where ads served next to the chosen content, resulting in 13 times more ads being served.
"Of the 5.5 billion ad impressions on X that day, less than 50 total ad impressions were served against all of the organic content featured in the Media Matters article,” Musk explained.
"As we've seen in some parts of the world, when free expression is taken away, it is very dangerous and hard to get back - that's why the people who came before us fought so hard to protect,” Musk said. "Without freedom of speech we lose the checks and balances critical to a thriving democracy. We must defend our individual rights as if our lives, and flourishing society, depend on it."
Go get ‘em, Elon!
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