Re:Twitter/X has lost its lawsuit against the Center for Cou...
by olliej on Monday March 25, 2024 @08:29PM
(#39822953)
Another case where people reported on post-musk twitter, and the free speech absolutist sued them because free speech doesn't cover criticism of Musk. I think this one was "after firing the teams responsible for taking down bad content, twitter stopped taking down bad content", so twitter/musk sued them claiming they had violated the CFAA (I can't recall if this suit also did the classic musk-ism of saying the report was bankrolled by competitors). The judge rightfully saw that there was no real CFAA claim, and the purpose of the lawsuit was to make them be quiet, and so dismissed it.
Now to be clear, this is not a "twitter should moderate/not moderate" question. This lawsuit was twitter/musk saying "no one can report about what we are or are not doing", and is the exact reason for anti-SLAPP laws existing: defending a lawsuit, even a clearly BS one, can cost thousands of dollars even when you win. Hence anti-SLAPP laws mean that if you can show the lawsuit is BS, the lawsuit is thrown out, and the accuser must cover your legal fees.
Re:Twitter/X has lost its lawsuit against the Center for Cou...
by vaidhy on Monday March 25, 2024 @09:21PM
(#39823325)
Specifically, CCDH collected 9600+ tweets from 10 re-instated accounts. These accounts were banned originally. It showed its in reports that Musk/X is making millions in ad revenue through these hate speech accounts.
Elon sued them for breach of contract saying they scraped the data while ToS disallows scraping and their breach of contract led to tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue since advertisers stopped advertising. There are a few other claims in similar vein.
The judge ruled that the suit has no merit and Musk is claiming to recover reputational damages under the guise of breach of contract. He is also not allowed to amend this and file again.
It is worth reading the judgement in entirety. It is well reasoned and written.
Re:Twitter/X has lost its lawsuit against the Center for Cou...
by rsynnott on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @05:41AM
(#39825842)
I’ve long thought that if a company loses a case based on SLAPP or similar rules, it should be required to pay upfront the defence costs of anyone it subsequently sues, with the ability to reclaim if it actually wins. There really needs to be a greater deterrent to this sort of behaviour.
More discussion on the dismissal:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39819212
Court decision link on HN: it's inappropriate!
Now to be clear, this is not a "twitter should moderate/not moderate" question. This lawsuit was twitter/musk saying "no one can report about what we are or are not doing", and is the exact reason for anti-SLAPP laws existing: defending a lawsuit, even a clearly BS one, can cost thousands of dollars even when you win. Hence anti-SLAPP laws mean that if you can show the lawsuit is BS, the lawsuit is thrown out, and the accuser must cover your legal fees.
Elon sued them for breach of contract saying they scraped the data while ToS disallows scraping and their breach of contract led to tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue since advertisers stopped advertising. There are a few other claims in similar vein.
The judge ruled that the suit has no merit and Musk is claiming to recover reputational damages under the guise of breach of contract. He is also not allowed to amend this and file again.
It is worth reading the judgement in entirety. It is well reasoned and written.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67654013/x-corp-v-cente...
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.41...