Elon Musk mentioned he might sue the Anti-Defamation League for purportedly accusing X and the billionaire proprietor of the social platform of antisemitism and fueling advertisers’ exodus from the social community.
In a post on X (previously often called Twitter) on Monday, Musk accused the civil rights group of “attempting to kill” X by “falsely accusing it & [him] of being anti-Semitic.” In one other post he claimed that X’s falling promoting income, which has plunged roughly 60% since his formal takeover of the platform in October of 2022, is “primarily as a result of stress on advertisers” by the ADL.
“If this continues, we may have no selection however to file a defamation swimsuit in opposition to, mockingly, the ‘Anti-Defamation’ League,” Musk mentioned.
Musk’s threats to sue the ADL come after a marketing campaign known as #BanTheADL trended on X this weekend. Musk engaged with the marketing campaign, which requires the group’s account on X to be banned, and asked his greater than 155 million followers if he ought to “run a ballot” on the matter.
The ADL mentioned it usually would not touch upon authorized threats, however in an announcement shared with CBS MoneyWatch on Tuesday it addressed the marketing campaign to take away its account from X.
“ADL is unsurprised but undeterred that antisemites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and different trolls have launched a coordinated assault on our group,” an ADL spokesperson mentioned. “Such insidious efforts do not daunt us.”
The ADL has flagged a surge in bullying and antisemitic posts on X following the billionaire’s acquisition of the social community final yr. After shopping for Twitter, Musk reinstated the accounts of prominent users akin to Babylon Bee and Andrew Tate that beforehand have been banned for publishing content material that violated the platform’s hate speech insurance policies earlier than Musk acquired it.
Since then, Musk has additionally rolled again guidelines that eliminated “violative hateful content material” on the platform, the ADL mentioned in a June report. Based on that evaluation, 27% of on-line harassment this yr occurred on X, up from 21% in 2022. The nonprofit group additionally pointed to an increase in antisemitism on the Musk-owned platform.
In an X post on Monday, Musk insisted that whereas he’s “professional free speech,” he’s “in opposition to anti-Semitism of any type.”
This is not the primary time X leaders have pushed again in opposition to criticism from an advocacy group. In July, X filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Heart for Countering Digital Hate for what the expertise firm characterised as a “scare marketing campaign to drive away advertisers from the X platform.”
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