Elon Musk declared his opposition to antisemitism in a post on Monday, and he accused the Anti-Defamation League of costing him advertising money since he acquired X, the website that once housed Twitter.
On his verified account on Monday afternoon, the tech magnate abruptly expressed his position on free speech and antisemitism. When questioned about his position by a user, Musk claimed that the ADL had been “trying to kill this platform by intentionally accusing it & me of having been anti-Semitic.”
Musk wrote, “Ironically, the ‘Anti-Defamation’ League will be the target of a defamation lawsuit if this continues.” We will demand that they remove the “anti” component of their name if they lose the slander lawsuit because, obviously.
To be super clear, I’m pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
Musk also pointed out that X’s advertising income in the United States is still 60% lower than it was previously, and he claimed that certain companies have informed the social networking platform that pressure from the ADL had a role in their decision.
As a matter of policy, the ADL declined to comment on legal threats, the organization stated on Monday. A representative for the organization pointed NBC News to a broad statement it released in reaction to a recent #BanTheADL movement on the platform, in which Musk has taken part.
Musk said he might want to “run a poll” on the subject in a post on Saturday.
The message read, “Such nefarious efforts don’t deter us.” Rather, they motivate us to remain unwavering in our commitment to combat hate in all of its manifestations and safeguard the safety of Jewish communities along with other oppressed groups.
Advertisers were leaving the platform, according to NBC News’ November report, as a result of businesses’ worries about the modifications Musk might make to the social media platform. Musk accused “activist groups” of trying to “destroy free speech in America” in a post at the time.
Users later provided more context for Musk’s remarks by linking to news stories that demonstrated that advertisers were behaving voluntarily.
Last month, X brought legal action against a non-profit group that keeps an eye on hate speech and misinformation. According to the lawsuit submitted in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, he claimed that the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) had organized a “scare campaign to drive away advertisers from the X platform.”
The complaint asserts that CCDH issued reports criticizing the platform for failing to take action regarding hate speech and that CCDH engaged in “a series of illegal activities designed to unlawfully obtain access” to the platform’s data.
At the time, Imran Ahmed, the nonprofit’s founder and CEO, accused Musk of bullying and referred to the lawsuit as coming “straight out of the dictatorial playbook.”
“This lawsuit is an explicit attempt to silence those efforts,” Ahmed added. “The Center for Countering Digital Hate’s research shows that hate and disinformation have spread like wildfire on the platform under Musk’s ownership.”
In March, the ADL published a study accusing the platform of doing nothing to stop hate speech. The ADL Center for Technology and Society of the organization discovered that only 28% of posts marked for antisemitic content were removed or punished.
The investigation concluded that Twitter fails to remove tweets that obviously violate its hateful conduct policy, “despite the fact that we have no way to actually verify whether the company is de-amplifying antisemitic content.”
One day after Musk took over the business in October, according to Montclair State University research from the previous year, hate speech on the site increased significantly. Among the terms examined were derogatory and hostile racial and other protected class epithets.
The statistics “clearly demonstrate that there is a correlation between Musk’s arrival and a broader regarded acceptability of posted hostile information on Twitter,” the university claimed.
The social networking platform faced criticism in April for ostensibly abandoning a long-standing policy intended to safeguard transgender users on the service. Since 2018, Twitter has prohibited the purposeful misgendering or deadnaming of transgender persons; however, earlier this year, a reference to that prohibition was removed from its policy.
According to the GLAAD Social Media Safety Index, Twitter, now known as X, is “the most hazardous platform for LGBTQ people.”