Pro Free Speech? Elon Musk Threatens to Sue Nonprofit for Criticizing Twitter

pcmag.com:

Despite his pro-free speech stance, Elon Musk is threatening to sue a nonprofit that says Twitter has experienced a surge in hate speech since he took over the company.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) says(Opens in a new window) it received the legal threat from Alex Spiro, a lawyer representing Musk, on July 20, days after the nonprofit published research(Opens in a new window) arguing Twitter is failing to stop hate speech on the platform.

Spiro says the CCDH's research is baseless and could open the nonprofit to a lawsuit for promoting “false and misleading claims” against Twitter. “This article leaves no doubt that CCDH intends to harm Twitter’s business by driving advertisers away from the platform with incendiary claims,” Spiro writes in a letter(Opens in a new window). 

However, the CCDH is blasting Musk for trying to suppress criticism of Twitter. In its own letter(Opens in a new window) to Spiro, the nonprofit calls the legal threat “ridiculous” and a “disturbing effort to intimidate those who have the courage to advocate against incitement, hate speech and harmful content online.

“Elon Musk’s actions represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research in the desperate hope that he can stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers,” the CCDH adds. 

Spiro threatens to sue the nonprofit for violating the Lanham Act, a trademark law that also prohibits false advertising. However, the CCDH calls the justification for the legal threat “bogus,” since the nonprofit isn’t a commercial entity. 

“Moreover, as a nonprofit working to stop online hate, CCDH is obviously not in competition with Twitter, which makes your allegations of a Lanham Act