Twitter Threatens to Sue Hate and Disinformation Watchdog CCDH

On Monday, Twitter’s parent company X threatened to sue an organization that tracks online hate speech and misinformation over “misleading claims” about Twitter.

The Details: The UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate said it received a letter earlier this month from X CEO Elon Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro. The letter referenced a study the CCDH published in June saying Twitter failed to act on 99% of hate spread by Twitter Blue subscribers. X claims the CCDH “made a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally.”

For Context: Earlier this month, it was reported that the CCDH’s 2021 “Disinformation Dozen” report prompted pre-Musk Twitter executives to take action against accounts spreading purported vaccine misinformation. The report named Democratic Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as one of the 12 and analyzed content across several platforms, including Facebook, which said the report lacked credibility.

Key Quotes: Musk recently Tweeted, of the CCDH, “Who is funding this organization? They spread disinformation and push censorship, while claiming the opposite. Truly evil.” Ahmed said, Musk’s threatened suit “represent(s) a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research,” and that Musk is “a bully who uses attack dogs to terrorize his opponents into silence.”

How The Media Covered It: Semafor (Lean Left bias) and The Hill (Center bias) referred to the CCDH as a nonprofit that combats hate speech. ZeroHedge (Lean Right bias) called it a “dark money nonprofit run by a far-left British Labour Party operative.”