Lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X against CCDH thrown out by judge

A federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s .

X sued the research group in July, alleging a “campaign of intimidation” to drive away advertisers. The company also accused CCDH of improperly accessing the platform’s data and selectively selecting posts that “falsely claimed” that X was “inundated with harmful content.”

The lawsuit follows a research report released by CCDH, a British company that tracks hate speech and online misinformation, which found that anti-Semitism on X increased after Musk took over the company, formerly known as Twitter, in late 2022 and an increase in anti-Muslim hate speech.

Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California wrote in his ruling that while X claimed the case involved breach of contract and illegal data theft, it was clearly about speech.

“Sometimes it’s not clear what is driving the lawsuit, and only by reading between the lines of the complaint can one try to surmise the plaintiff’s true purpose,” Breyer wrote. “Other times, the complaint is so unabashedly and loudly directed at one thing , so that its purpose cannot be misunderstood. This case represents the latter situation. This case is about punishing the defendant for his speech.”

In one analysis, CCDH researchers evaluated 100 different premium Twitter Blue accounts and found that the platform failed to take action on 99% of hate speech posted by these users. CCDH also found that Twitter failed to take action against 89% of anti-Semitic hate speech and 97% of anti-Muslim hate speech on the platform.

CCDH told CNBC in a statement Breyer’s ruling on Monday “sends a strong message about seeking to censor those who criticize social media companies, and we believe it will resonate throughout Silicon Valley and beyond.”

CCDH attorney Roberta Kaplan recently won a victory in a defamation case brought against former President Donald Trump on behalf of author E. Jean Carroll. A jury found Trump responsible for the 1996 sexual abuse of Carroll.

X said in a post on its XNews account that it “disagrees with the court’s decision and plans to appeal.” Lawyers for X did not respond to requests for comment.

Musk is filing similar lawsuits against other groups.

In one example, X sued an Israeli online data collection company called Bright Data, accusing it of scraping data from its social media platform without authorization.and In Texas, X files suit Media Matters for America and a staff member released an investigative report to the watchdog titled “X has been placing Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Advertisement for Xfinity.”