Target for Elon Musk’s lawsuit, hate speech watchdog CCDH, announces its decision to quit X ahead of terms of service change
A London-based non-profit that has been the subject of Elon Musk’s ire and lawsuit, has announced it is quitting the platform known as X (formerly Twitter).
In a blog post on Thursday, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) explained its reasoning for leaving the microblogging platform.
It comes after the Guardian media group earlier this week announced it was also quitting the platform due to “disturbing content” on the platform.
Hate speech
CCDH explained that it would leave Elon Musk-owned social media site X, due to concerns that upcoming changes to the platform’s terms of service could hinder its ability in court battles. Essentially, Elon Musk is changing the terms of service so the platform can only be sued in courts in its home state of Texas (where X is now headquartered).
“Elon Musk has transformed a once-influential town square into a dangerous, troubled space where hate, conspiracy theories, and lies have privileged access to the megaphone,” noted the CCDH in its blog post.
“Since Musk took over the company, our research has shown the decline of Twitter, now X, into the kind of ‘hellscape’ that Elon Musk, upon taking control, told advertisers Twitter would become if platform standards degraded completely,” it wrote.
The non-profit pointed out that since Musk took over, studies have shown that hate speech on the platform has surged.
In June 2023 the CCDH had published research about X’s alleged failure to take action against hate speech on its platform.
Twitter then threatened to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate, accusing the non-profit of making “a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically”.
Musk has always claimed himself to be “free-speech absolutist”, but days after his threat to sue was revealed, he ordered X in August 2023 to sue CCDH in a San Francisco federal court, accusing CCDH of deliberately trying to drive advertisers away from Twitter by publishing reports critical of the platform’s response to hateful content.
In September 2023 CCDH refused to back down, and reported 300 tweets to Elon Musk’s platform, that contained extreme hate.
In March 2024 a US federal judge Charles Breyer signalled he may dismiss X Corp’s lawsuit against the CCDH, and shortly after that, the judge entirely dismissed X’s lawsuit, saying there could be “no mistaking” that the suit was about “punishing” the firm’s critics.
Terms of service
Now CCDH made clear the principle reason for leaving Elon Musk’s platform is because “Musk is changing X’s terms of service to ensure that future legal assaults are presided over by judges he feels will be on his side.”
“On November 15, X is changing its terms of service to require that all legal disputes related to the platform’s new rules “will be brought exclusively in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts located in Tarrant County, Texas,” CCDH noted.
The US District Court for the Northern District of Texas is already presiding over Musk’s lawsuits against Media Matters and Global Alliance for Responsible Media.
“Elon Musk has a track record of using his money and power to attempt to intimidate his critics in court,” wrote the CCDH. “Now, the billionaire will be able to bring lawsuits to friendly courts against whoever disagrees with him on his platform – lawsuits that force organisations to spend millions of dollars defending themselves against frivolous claims, rather than investing in their mission.”
“Anyone who stays on X after November 15 will automatically accept the new terms of service,” it wrote. “Does that sound terrifying? It is, particularly for small, independent organisations doing research on X and trying to hold the platform and its boss accountable.”
“For CCDH, this is more than an exit announcement: it is a warning to other individuals and organisations who investigate and report on social media companies’ failures and Musk’s authoritarian moves,” it said. “It is even a warning to normal users that any criticism of X might find you in court in Texas defending yourself against a lawsuit brought by X Corp.”
“It was never about building an inclusive town square,” CCDH wrote. “For Elon Musk, freedom of speech is reserved for speech that echos his own beliefs about the world – and about himself. His platform is just a cauldron of hate, disinformation and self-serving content.”
CCDH said it will maintain its accounts on Threads, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.
Earlier this month a CCDH report had warned that X’s crowd-sourced fact-checking program, called Community Notes, was not addressing the flood of US election misinformation.