Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform lawsuit filed against the nonprofit Media Matters for America. The organisation controls American media to spreading “news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable or credible and that advances the conservative agenda.” Last week it published a critical report on X.
From the report it turned out that on X advertisements from major companies were regularly displayed next to anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi posts. In response to this report, many major companies, such as Disney, Apple and Warner Bros., stopped advertising on this fraudulent attack on our company.”
Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, said Monday that the organization stands by its report and called the lawsuit an attempt “to silence X’s critics.” Carusone said the organization will continue its work despite the lawsuit. “If he sues us, we will win.”
Anti-Semitism
In the report, Media Matters is also very critical of Musk himself, who regularly posts controversial messages on his own platform. For example, the watchdog refers to a message from Musk in which he shares anti-Semitic conspiracy theory which states that “Jewish people support large groups of minorities who are flooding into the country to replace white people.” This is the same conspiracy theory that led to the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in the American city of Pittsburgh in 2018.
According to the American magazine Fortune X CEO Linda Yaccarino says that Media Matters “manipulates not only advertisers, but people in general.” During a meeting, Yaccarino reportedly said that the watchdog has a long history as an activist organization, “to impose a narrative and not allow people in the world to make their own decisions.” The CEO says that it is now very important to quickly attract new advertisers.
Declining advertising revenues
Since Musk took over X, the company has seen a significant drop in advertising revenue. According to Reuters the social medium has at least 55 percent less advertising revenue than before the takeover. Musk’s tumultuous leadership, among other things, means that the company has difficulty retaining advertisers. For example, almost 3,700 employees were laid off in November last year and the company changed the name Twitter to X in July this year.
Musk has previously acknowledged that revenues are declining, and blamed this on activists. According to him, they would increase the pressure on companies to stop advertising on X.