Twitter is threatening legal action against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that researches hate speech and content moderation on social media platforms.
The letter from Twitter’s lawyers alleges that CCDH’s research publications are intended to ‘harm Twitter’s business by driving advertisers away from the platform with incendiary claims.’
This is a pretty bold move from Twitter, especially considering that CCDH is a well-respected organization that has been doing this kind of research for years. And it’s especially ironic coming from Elon Musk, who has said that he’s a ‘free speech absolutist.’
But Musk has also shown that he’s sensitive to criticism, so it’s not surprising that he’s taking this kind of action against CCDH
Elon used to love saying he was a Free Speech Absolutist, but once again that only extends to speech he likes.
The man will say absolutely anything.
He likes any speech as long as it makes him money.
It’s our fault honestly. We kept hearing “free speech” but he’s been saying “fee speech” this whole time!
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The response from CCDH is savage -
https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Letter-to-A.-Spiro-from-R.-Kaplan-re-CCDH.pdf
The best part of it:
If your clients do file suit, please be advised that CCDH intends to seek immediate discovery regarding hate speech and misinformation on the Twitter platform; Twitter’s policies and practices relating to these issues; and Twitter’s advertising revenue. In that event, a court will determine for itself the truth of the statements in our client’s report in accordance with the time-tested rules of civil procedure and evidence.
Now that is a nuclear statement in a lawyers letter…
I love that this is a legal letter and yet contains the very direct phrase:
That threat is bogus and you know it.
I love it. The gist is:
- hate speech is running rampant on your platform.
- you’re doing nothing to stop it.
- here’s our evidence.
- where’s your e idence?
- why are you spending time and money on fighting us instead of on fighting the literal white supremacist death threats on your platform?
- telling us we’ve not sampled enough tweets while you’re in the process of making impossible the mass sampling of tweets is…a bit rich.
- we’re not intimidated by your threats
- your threats are also bullshit
- we’re not gonna stop
It’s a textbook example of “no u” in grown up language. Bravo.
Not to mention how it starts with
“We write in response to the ridiculous letter you sent our clients on behalf of X Corp.”
They are not taking any BS. I love it.
Legal snark is by far the most expensive brand of humor, but when it’s deployed on your behalf it’s so goddamn satisfying.
During a hearing in my divorce, I answered a question from the judge, the other lawyer says “we can’t have hearsay in this discussion”, my lawyer responds “well this will be a short hearing then because everything in your client’s motion is hearsay”.
That little snap cost me about $15 but it was worth it.
Legal snark is by far the most expensive brand of humor
I trust that you’ve read this one?
Free speech, but until something goes wrong. Then it’s totalitarian government
Mush (sic) is a true POS. I am incredibly glad i changed my mind on a pre-order down payment on the Tesla 3.
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It’s front end is ugly AF.
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Mush balls showed how retarded he is.
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Please, please do that. I can’t wait to see the discovery portion of the trial
If they go to court, wouldn’t the court make them prove that the claim was false or defamation? And if CCDH can prove that it’s not false or defamation then now it’s legal record that hate speech has increased since the takeover? This all seems ok with me.
That’s not how the American court system works.
A company like Twitter can bleed the CCDH dry and just walk away with a frivolous lawsuit and a minor (insignificant) penalty.
And the way that works is not by accident.
This is a great example of a SLAPP suit
Evidence based documentation is going to be hard to win against, unless the plan is just drag them through legal proceedings until they can’t afford it. The american dream.
It’s a shame that people are still using that platform.
I really think all the artists still on there are shooting themselves in the foot in the long run.
And that obviously has already started with the direct messaging restrictions that messes with contacting commissioners.
If they leave Twitter, where are they going to go? Artists need to promote themselves. They sure aren’t coming here to promote themselves. Twitter has always been where people go to keep up with their favorite artists whether it be art, music, comedy, etc. If they leave then they’re shooting themselves in the foot. Twitter is still massively popular even if you don’t agree. Same goes for Reddit.
People who have made a living promoting themselves on Twitter aren’t going to leave it just because Musk is a dumbass. Most artists as you mention typical have business emails in their profiles. Until Musk does something to fuck with their income, they’re staying.
It’s the same shit when people on Reddit say they’re abandoning COD this year because the devs pissed them off only for the game to have the highest sales ever. You, me, Lemmy users, and Reddit haters are just a fraction of the people who use those sites.
They (celebrities) would have the biggest pull to get people moved onto one of these new services.
I know nothing short of the names as I don’t need that kind of app or service but if one of these new places like blue sky or mastadon had an easy way to get signed up for the masses then someone like Taylor Swift saying she was signing up and to join her there as she drops twixxter then millions of people would sign up in days.
“Twitter has always where people go to keep up with their favorite artists…”
Somehow fandoms managed to exist before 2007.
Mastodon? Pixiv? Deviantart? Artstation?
Mastodon is a good pick to keep in the back pocket but it doesn’t have mass adoption yet, and all the others are art-dedicated websites. The advantage of Twitter was that it made it easy for their art to be shared widely but linked back to their account so that regular people just browsing would get to know their work and maybe follow them through it. Anyone regularly browsing those other websites are already art enthusiasts so that’s not so effective to expand their audience.
It won’t have adoption until it gets adopted. And the only way for that to happen is for people to adopt it of course. What probably needs to happen is for someone to write a simple app to either post to both at the same time or something that someone could run themselves or pay an inexpensive nominal fee for someone else to run for them to mirror their posts.