Elon Musk, billionaire owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, stated on Saturday evening that he and his company would declare war against any corporation that punished their employees for things they do and say on his social media platform. While some might still feel hesitant to trust Musk concerning many of the things he’s promised to do to uphold freedom of speech, he has shown on numerous occasions he’s serious about making X a true digital town square for the modern age. This is no different.
“If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill,” Musk posted on X. “No limit. Please let us know.”
The billionaire tech mogul then added that X would also launch a public relations war against companies that punish their workers for their activity on the platform. You can probably bet he’s being serious when he makes a statement like this. He then posted, “And we won’t just sue, it will be extremely loud and we will go after the boards of directors of the companies too.”
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what it looks like to stand up for free speech. It’s nice to know there’s at least someone with pull, influence, money, and power who will do a little something to help protect the battlefield of ideas from those who wish to silence voices due to disagreement with their political views.
And we won’t just sue, it will be extremely loud and we will go after the boards of directors of the companies too
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2023
“X filed a lawsuit last week against a non-profit organization accusing it of unlawfully accessing private data and cherry-picking posts to show a rise in hate speech on the social media platform under Musk’s ownership,” the Daily Wire reported.
“Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the social media company formerly known as Twitter claims the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) — a British non-profit that researches so-called online hate and disinformation — orchestrated a ‘scare campaign to drive away advertisers from the X platform’ by publishing so-called hate speech reports,” it continued.
Holy smokes. YUGE pic.twitter.com/2mYKJIfNjK
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 6, 2023
“CCDH has done this by engaging in a series of unlawful acts designed to improperly gain access to protected X Corp. data, needed by CCDH so that it could cherry-pick from the hundreds of millions of posts made each day on X and falsely claim it had statistical support showing the platform is overwhelmed with harmful content,” the lawsuit said.
The complaint comes just mere hours after a letter was sent from Alex Spiro, an attorney for X, which threatens legal action against the non-profit group found itself in major headlines.
According to the Daily Wire, Spiro reportedly stated in the letter dated July 20 that the center made “a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically,” providing eight different examples which X referred to as “false, misleading or both” due to improper research methods.
Is going after these companies the right course of action? Do they have the right to fire someone for something said in public? Those are the questions that needed answered moving forward.