Twitter Threatens to Sue Anti-Hate Monitoring Group Over Claims of Increased Hate Speech

Remember how Elon Musk bought Twitter last year with the goal of making it a “bastion of free speech”. Well, things didn’t nearly go as the way we thought. The billionaire got caught up in the money-making side of things, and since then, a lot has changed.

Musk has been accused of censoring certain ideas, saying that he wants to make Twitter more “advertiser-friendly.” He’s also proposed changes to the way Twitter’s algorithm works, which could make it harder for users to see tweets that they disagree with.

Given everything that’s happened, both journalists and analysts have been quite critical of Musk’s policies. Surprisingly, all that criticism doesn’t seem to have had any impact on him. So, ever since Musk took over last year, a non-profit organization named Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has been regularly investigating the content on the platform.

Most of you reading this probably won't be aware with the CCDH, and what it does. Well, it is an organization that "stops the spread of online hate and disinformation through research, public campaigns and policy advocacy." 

According to most of their researches, they claim that there has been an increase in the amount of hateful content posted on the site since last year. They also believe that around 99% of hateful content posted by Twitter Blue subscribers isn’t moderated, because that is the ‘main source of driving in money‘ after advertisers.

Now, X is threatening to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate, as it believes that the CCDH is specifically targeting X to drive away advertisers (which is one of the few things that Musk can’t stand right now).

In a recent letter to Musk’s legal team, the CCDH accused the billionaire of making “inflammatory, outrageous, and false or misleading assertions” about their research. The CCDH also pointed out that Musk’s own actions have contributed to the increase in hateful content on Twitter. For example, Musk reinstated the accounts of several high-profile figures who have been banned for spreading hate speech.

CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed believes that Musk’s motivation for reinstating these accounts is simple: it’s profitable. Ahmed estimates that over $19 million could be generated from just 10 accounts, which include the likes of Andrew Tate, Gateway Pundit, and Anthime Gionet.

On July 20th, Twitter responded to the allegations made by CCDH by sending them a letter threatening to sue. In the letter, Twitter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, clearly targeted CCDH’s claims, which he believed were troubling and unfounded.

In the letter, Spiro said that these claims seemed like a calculated attempt to harm Twitter as a whole, and specifically targeted its digital advertising business.

In addition to this, remember the allegation we talked about where Twitter was supposedly not taking action against “99% of Twitter Blue users.” Well, it turns out that the research supporting this claim was based on only 100 accounts, and it was merely checking whether those tweets had been removed or taken action against within four days.

In the letter, Alex also mentioned that CCDH was allegedly receiving funding from foreign governments and its competitors. However, it’s worth noting that Twitter’s main competitor at that time is Meta. In the past, Twitter had even sent a letter to Meta, accusing them of copying their platform while developing Threads.

The credibility of CCDH in this case is being questioned, but if there were to be a defamation case, it would need to be settled in court. At this moment, however, the main threat X has from CCDH is the fact that it is driving away advertisers, and rightfully so, this is something that no one at X Corp. wants to deal with.

This is all we know for now, but rest assured that we will keep you updated as ne information becomes available.

via: CCDH