by Sayer Ji, Green Med Info:
Following immediately in the wake of our most recent report, “BREAKING: Elon Musk Threatens Suit Against ‘Digital Hate Group’ CCDH, Calls Out Their ‘Research’ as Baseless Propaganda,” it is now official: Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against CCDH with the following 4 complaints:
(1) BREACH OF CONTRACT
(2) VIOLATION OF THE COMPUTER FRAUD AND ABUSE ACT
(3) INTENTIONAL INTERFERENCE WITH CONTRACTUAL RELATIONS; AND
(4) INDUCING BREACH OF CONTRACT
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
The 23 page lawsuit, case number: Case 3:23-cv-03836, filed UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA on July 31st, 2023, lays out the following case:
1. Defendants Center for Countering Digital Hate, Inc. (“CCDH US”) and Center for Countering Digital Hate Ltd. (“CCDH UK,” collectively “CCDH”) — activist organizations masquerading as research agencies, funded and supported by unknown organizations, individuals and potentially even foreign governments with ties to legacy media companies — have embarked on a scare campaign to drive away advertisers from the X platform. CCDH has done this by engaging in a series of unlawful acts designed to improperly gain access to protected X Corp. data, needed by CCDH so that it could cherry-pick from the hundreds of millions of posts made each day on X and falsely claim it had statistical support showing the platform is overwhelmed with harmful content. 2. CCDH intentionally and unlawfully accessed data it sought regarding the X platform in two ways. CCDH US, as a registered user of X, scraped data from X’s platform in violation of the express terms of its agreement with X Corp. CCDH also convinced an unknown third party — in violation of that third party’s contractual obligations — to improperly share login credentials to a secured database that CCDH then accessed, and retrieved information from, on multiple occasions without authorization. CCDH, in turn, selectively quoted data it obtained via those methods. It did so out of context in public reports and articles it prepared to make it appear as if X is overwhelmed by harmful content, and then used that contrived narrative to call for companies to stop advertising on X. 3. CCDH’s underhanded conduct is nothing new. It has a history of using similar tactics not for the goal of combating hate, but rather to censor a wide range of viewpoints on social media with which it disagrees. CCDH’s efforts often rely on obtaining and intentionally mischaracterizing data in “research” reports it prepares to make it appear as if a few specific users (often media organizations and high profile individuals) are overwhelming social media platforms with content that CCDH deems harmful. CCDH uses those reports to demand that platform providers kick the targeted users off of their platforms, thus silencing their viewpoints on broadly debated topics such as COVID-19 vaccines, reproductive healthcare, and climate change. In this manner, CCDH seeks to prevent public dialogue and the public’s access to free expression in favor of an ideological echo chamber that conforms to CCDH’s favored viewpoints. 4. CCDH’s methodologies in preparing its “research” reports have been widely criticized as “flawed” for using inappropriately small sample sizes and quoting data out of context, and CCDH has been accused of using those methodologies to create “faulty narratives” about the type and volume of harmful content on platforms. CCDH nonetheless continues to prepare its incorrect reports and articles, including those against X Corp., in efforts to silence users it disagrees with on topics of public debate, and now to cause serious financial harm to X Corp.
5. In direct response to CCDH’s efforts, some companies have paused their advertising spend on X. CCDH’s unlawful conduct as alleged herein has directly and proximately damaged X Corp. in an amount to be proven at trial, but in any event at least tens of millions of dollars that X Corp. estimates it has lost in advertising revenues and other costs incurred. More fundamentally still, CCDH’s scare campaign to global advertisers and its ongoing pressure on brands is an attempt to stifle freedom of speech on the X platform.
6. X Corp. brings this lawsuit to vindicate its rights against CCDH, as well as any presently unknown supporters and funders who have, among other things, directed, instructed, acted as agents of or in concert with, and/or who have participated in meaningful ways in CCDH’s unlawful conduct as alleged herein. As below, the identities of such supporters and funders of CCDH, which has been referred to by a United States Senator as a “[f]oreign dark money group,” are presently unknown, but X Corp. has named Doe Defendants and will amend the Complaint to assert their true names and capacities once they are ascertained through discovery.
The lawsuit uses the “Disinformation Dozen” campaign conducted by CCDH as an example of how “CCDH’s reports and articles, coupled with its demands to entirely remove certain users from platforms, are transparent efforts to censor viewpoints that CCDH disagrees with, and reveal CCDH’s goal of leaving on the platforms only viewpoints that CCDH supports. CCDH’s reports and articles, to this end, seek to present an extremely distorted picture of what is actually being discussed and debated, and seek to undermine platforms serving as digital town squares, where a wide range of beliefs can and should be debated in a healthy manner. ”
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As we have reported elsewhere, CCDH’s report was without factual basis, even though it was used to slander twelve US citizens for over two years straight, using thousands of mainstream media outlets to amplify their defamatory campaign with the writing of hit pieces against us:
“That report was criticized by at least one of the major social media platforms it purportedly analyzed for creating a “faulty narrative” without “any evidence” to support its conclusion. According to that platform provider, CCDH’s report relied on a small sample size that did not properly represent the volume of content that people had shared about COVID vaccines in the preceding months.”
Ultimately, Musk’s lawsuit, while self-interested, has profoundly positive implications for all US citizens and their First Amendment rights by calling out a malign foreign influence operation masquerading as a ‘non profit’ research agency, funded and supported largely by UK-based NGOs with government and legacy media ties, and whose multi-year long focus has been attacking both private individuals and entities with defamation resulting in profound reputational and financial damage. This lawsuit stands to put CCDH, their colluders in the US media and government, as well as their dark money funders overseas, on notice that the laws of this land, and the US Constitution which vivifies them, will not be trampled upon so disgracefully without a good fight.
