Elon Musk’s X – formerly known as Twitter – has filed a lawsuit against Media Matters over a report the group put out claiming that major advertisers were having their ads show up next to anti-semitic content. Musk claims that Media Matters manipulated the algorithm to make that happen. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Elon Musk’s formerly known as Twitter, has filed a lawsuit against Media Matters over a report that the group put out, claimed that advertisers were having their ads show up next to anti-semitic content. Musk claims that Media Matters manipulated the algorithms. We’ve seen ’em do it before. We see everybody do that. This is an interesting lawsuit. Let me just tell you something. If what he’s saying here, if the allegations are correct, he could put Media Matters outta business. Now, the only saving grace in this is what you found and what I found. If Media Matters wants to win this lawsuit, this kills it. Doesn’t it? Go ahead.
Farron Cousins: Well, you’ve got Elon Musk that has also said, yeah, basically, eh, it happens. You know, that’s not exactly the kind of thing you want to do to bolster your point here. But to me, I think one of the biggest things is that they’re making this claim that Media Matters has manipulated this or that it’s showing up because they only follow the bad people. So obviously the ads will show up there. But that doesn’t change the fact that the ads showed up there. What Media Matters showed, as far as I can tell, was not false. Right. They have not doctored these images, but if these ads from these individuals do in fact show up next to these neo-Nazis account, because they’re all over social media on every account. You’re gonna find your neo-Nazis, your racists, whatever. But the way the ads now work on Twitter, it does put them there if that’s what you follow. So.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. Let me just speak as a lawyer. Okay. If I have this fact situation, and I find that there’s 30 accounts, and they’ve taken those 30 accounts and bundled them up to make it look like this is a broad, expansive effort on Musk, on his part to promote anti-semitism, and they find out they can show, well, there were decisions. They’re called depositions when you start asking these questions. And you start asking those questions, well, were you told to take this and move it over here? Were you told to take these 30 and bunch ’em up and put ’em all collectively together? That’s a problem. Here’s the issue though. Even with that, if Elon Musk, there was a tweet that went out, it says that Jews promoted hatred against whites. That was one of the tweets apparently. And the response was from him, you’ve said the actual truth. That’s kind of a deal killer where it comes to his aggressive attack on Media Matters. But if that, I can see this case being won, that’s all I’m trying to tell you. If the depositions go right, and it’s found that this organization set out to discredit Elon Musk and to discredit Twitter by gaming the system, it’s a tough go. But that statement by Elon Musk, I think it’s a killer.
Farron Cousins: Well, see, I think it’s a little, you know, obviously a million bajillion times more about law than I do, clearly. I think it’s a little flimsy, but I agree with you that they have a good chance of winning and that’s due to venue.
Mike Papantonio: Texas.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, that’s.
Mike Papantonio: Good point. Good point.
Farron Cousins: That is a huge thing working against Media Matters on this. And you have the Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has now said, we’re gonna launch an investigation. So you’re already creating this public perception in Texas that this group has done something wrong. And you get your jury, you get your Republican judge.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you’ve got a Republican appeals court that a consumer doesn’t have a chance there. They would love to get a case like this, you see. That is a really good point, because if you look at it, the headquarters, the headquarters is one is California, and I’m trying to think of where else, Nevada. Yeah, San Francisco and Nevada are two of their headquarters. But they did some forum shopping and they said, where could we make the best case? A jury in Texas could really put these folks outta business. But I don’t know how you get around Elon Musk saying, yeah, I kind of agree with the idea. It’s his agreement that Jews hate white people.
Farron Cousins: I mean, it got so bad to the point he actually just had to travel over there.
Mike Papantonio: To Israel.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. To try to act, hey, look at me. I’m such a friendly guy. But the venue to me, it’s a lot. Honestly, when you look at venues, I talk about it a lot, the Trump documents case. That’s a slam dunk case. But because of where you are, you’re not gonna win.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Well, and then the other side of it is he can’t, the state and prosecutors can’t lose in New York. They can’t lose in Washington, DC. The venue shopping is a big part of this. I’m glad you pointed that out.
