Elon Musk said that he would file a lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League for allegedly accusing X and the social media site’s billionaire owner of antisemitism and encouraging advertisers to leave the platform.
Musk claimed that the ADL is “trying to kill” X by “falsely accusing it and [him] of being anti-Semitic” in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Monday. In another post, he asserted that the ADL’s pressure on advertisers is “primarily” to blame for X’s declining advertising revenue, which has fallen by about 60% since his official takeover of the platform in October 2022.
Musk stated, “Ironically, the ‘Anti-Defamation’ League will be the target of a defamation lawsuit if this keeps up.
Musk’s vows to file a lawsuit against the ADL follow this weekend’s trending hashtag #BanTheADL on X. Musk joined the effort to “ban” the group’s X account and asked his more than 155 million followers whether he should “run a poll” on the issue. The campaign demands that the account be taken down.
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X Controversy Escalates
The ADL said that it typically doesn’t comment on legal threats, but in a statement provided to CBS MoneyWatch on Tuesday, it addressed the movement to have its account deleted on X.
Anti-Semites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, and other trolls have launched a systematic attack against our organization, but the ADL is not shocked nor discouraged by this. Such sneaky attempts don’t deter us, though.
Following the billionaire’s purchase of X last year, the ADL has noted an increase in bullying and antisemitic messages on the social network. Musk restored the accounts of well-known users like Babylon Bee and Andrew Tate that had previously been suspended for sharing material that violated the hate speech regulations of the site before Musk owned it.
Since then, according to a June report from the ADL, Musk has also reversed policies that deleted “violent hateful content” from the site. That research found that this year, 27% of online abuse took place on X, rising from 21% in 2022. The nonprofit organization also noted a surge in antisemitism on the site run by Musk.
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Source: CBS News
