Anti-Hate Nonprofit Seeks Dismissal of X’s ‘Scare Campaign’ Lawsuit

Despite the “window dressing,” the X platform’s July 31 complaint against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and its U.K. counterpart for allegedly running a "scare campaign" to drive away X advertisers (see 2308010034) is “fundamentally a case about speech,” said CCDH’s motion to dismiss Thursday (docket 3:23-cv-03836) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.

CCDH and other nonprofits have researched and published reports and articles documenting how major social media companies, including X, “protect or fail to protect against hate speech and false narratives relating to public health, climate change, and other topics of public concern,” according to the motion to dismiss. Apparently unhappy with how it’s faring in the “marketplace of ideas,” X asks the court “to shut that marketplace down,” it said.

X would have the court “punish” CCDH for its speech, and “silence others” who might speak up against X in the future, said the motion. X seeks at least tens of millions of dollars in damages “based on how advertisers reacted” to what CCDH said about the platform in its public reports, it said.

X “conspicuously” hasn’t asserted a defamation claim against CCDH, said the motion. That’s “understandably so,” since X can’t allege that CCDH said anything “knowingly false” about the platform, nor does X “wish to invite discovery on the truth about the content on its platform,” it said. Instead, X “has ginned up baseless claims” purporting to take issue with how CCDH gathered data that formed the basis of its research and publications, it said.

Each of X’s theories “is flimsier and more absurd than the last,” said the motion. X’s amended complaint asserts a claim for breach of contract against CCDH, it said. X claims CCDH breached Twitter’s terms of service when it used Twitter’s search function to collect publicly available information, it said. X also brings a federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim against CCDH, asserting that CCDH’s use of a data analytics platform called Brandwatch “somehow amounted to a federal hacking violation," it said.

X also brings tort claims against CCDH “for intentional interference with contractual relations,” arising from the Brandwatch data collection and its use in three CCDH reports, said the motion. X’s claims “are riddled with legal deficiencies on their own terms,” it said. They also all share “one fundamental flaw,” it said.

X’s grievance, “at its core,” isn’t that CCDH gathered public data in violation of “obscure” and “largely imagined” contract terms, but that CCDH “forcefully” criticized X in public, said the motion. In essence, X “seeks to dodge the requirements that the First Amendment imposes on defamation claims by asserting other claims that are no less entwined” with CCDH’s speech.

State and federal free speech protections can’t be “so easily evaded,” said the motion. X’s “attempted end-run falls flat,” not only due to those vital protections, “but also because it fails to state any plausible claim upon which relief can be granted,” it said. Under California’s anti-SLAPP statute -- SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuits against public participation -- X also can’t establish “a probability of prevailing on its state-law causes of action,” it said. X’s complaint “must be stricken or dismissed, with prejudice and in its entirety,” it said.