The allegation (until proven in court to the required legal standard) is that Media Matters worked hard to manipulate X to fit a narrative. They created a false narrative and drove it hard in a campaign designed to cause financial and reputation harm to both X and Musk.
Some of what is being alleged is the equivalent of taking something that is several standard deviations from the mean and claiming this is the mean.
In paragraph 35:
"35. Media Matters also omitted and made no attempt to clarify the rarity of these pairings. The representation put forth by Media Matters constituted 0.0000009090909 percent of impressions served on the day in question. Most or all of these pairings were not seen by literally anyone besides Media Matters’ own manipulated account, and no authentic user of the platform has been confirmed to have seen any of these pairings."
They created an account to follow extremists and brands. They manipulated this account until they got screenshots they could publish to attack X and Musk.
This, if proven to be the case in a court of law, should be criminal if it isn't.
Look at it a different way: Would you be OK with someone doing that to you? Making a concerted and calculated effort to damage your career and person with false and deeply distorted allegations? Would that be OK?
I hope you say "No, it would not".
And that's the point here.
Society would absolutely crumble under the pressure of such things if permitted to permeate our culture and information sources without consequence. Nothing good comes from anyone, individual or companies, behaving in this manner.
As I have stated multiple times now, these are allegations. They have to pass the test of the legal system. That's the correct venue until we cease to be civilized. Should they allegations prove to be true, Media Matters, the people responsible and external actors and organizations that participated in any way or jumped on the bandwagon to multiply the damage should pay dearly for their actions.
Society should not tolerate such behavior. It is destructive in the worst possible way. And, at the limit, it can only lead to violence and the destruction of the tenuous social fabric that holds populations together.
Let the courts look at this and decide. That's the way a civilized society behaves.
Legal critics don't matter. If it were up to them the entire Biden and Trump (and other) families would be rotting in jail right now. That's how much their "analysis" matters. Zero.
The reason it is is because defamation requires falsity, and if the article states nothing false then there cannot be a claim for defamation or for anything arising from that.
> Some of what is being alleged is the equivalent of taking something that is several standard deviations from the mean and claiming this is the mean.
The article did not "claim[] this is the mean," though. There is no wording directly stating anything about frequency of occurrence or whether the observations are representative. Your quoted paragraph says as much.
> Making a concerted and calculated effort to damage your career and person with false and deeply distorted allegations? Would that be OK?
Being OK with something is not the same thing as something being (il)legal. The First Amendment doesn't only protect "acceptable" speech.
In addition, you're mixing two different things here. False allegations are subject to defamation claims by definition. Deeply distorted allegations, on the other hand, are not automatically defamation - the manner and effect of the distortion influences the analysis.
If Elon is wrong, it will cost him dearly. If he is right, the consequences for Media Matters, their inner and outer circles should be severe enough to fit the crime.
It's that simple. We'll see.
I have a feeling that Media Matters might be in serious trouble. I would be surprised if Elon has any interest in a settlement out of court. If he is right, he is going for what he called the "thermonuclear option", which means he will take this up the legal system as far and wide as he is able to.
Maybe this is what this country needs in order to eradicate the violent practice of attempting to utterly destroy people and companies not aligned with a specific political narrative.
How is this behavior good for society in the long run? It isn't.
I mean, today, we live in a society where you have to be careful what you say because you never know if a nut-job with a million followers on TikTok is going to latch-on and enlist a massive mob to destroy you, your career and your family.
Again, in what universe is that good for society?
I don't know where the lawsuit is going to go. If Media Matters is found to be guilty, I hope the courts make a brutal example of them and everyone who participated in the many destruction campaigns they have engaged in over the years. It's about time.
> If Elon is wrong, it will cost him dearly. If he is right, the consequences for Media Matters, their inner and outer circles should be severe enough to fit the crime.
It's not even a matter of whether Elon is right or wrong since he doesn't really dispute any facts. That's the biggest hangup people have with the lawsuit.
> How is this behavior good for society in the long run? It isn't.
That's not really relevant here since "good for society" is not the legal standard for libel/slander/defamation/etc. cases, for better or worse.
And if I'm thinking of the same thing you are, you can't use the US government to substantially address the behavior you so detest without repealing the First Amendment.
The opinions of legal experts on the law are probably rather more relevant than those of either (a) random HN posters or (b) Elon Musk, who has demonstrated prior confusion about this.
Having been involved in a few legal battles over the decades I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that nobody on the outside of a trial has a clue or a valid opinion at all. That includes me, of course.
This is why courts and lawsuits are about. The evidence has to be presented with sufficient detail and clarity for a legal conclusion to be reached. Nothing else anyone says matters at all.
My comments on this are very simple:
If anyone is going to comment, at least read the court filing.
Understand that groups like Media Matters and the media have been in the business of search-and-destroy-at-all-costs for years. These are not wholesome organizations. They are violent organizations, with their violence taking the form of the indiscriminate destruction of anyone who does not align with a certain narrative.
Am I biased? Of course! Because I know exactly what the blind support of these kinds of nefarious actors can do to a society and the nation. Just go down the list of Latin American (LATAM) countries for examples of just how ugly things can get.
I know the HN crowd can be deeply ideologically aligned with these leftist organizations. So be it. If nobody here presents contrast there's a zero percent probability of anyone actually thinking and realizing that what has been pounded into their brains is a ridiculous destructive fantasy.
Do we have to get to total societal destruction and 40% unemployment before people wake up and understand? I hope not. Coming back from that is almost impossible. Again, look at LATAM.
I have always referred to LATAM as "the time machine for the US". Everything that is happening here has already happened in LATAM a million different ways as far back as decades ago. We know, without any doubt, how this ends. And it isn't good.
So, no, Media Matters, their inner and outer circles are not organizations dedicated to improving society. Not even close. They exist to destroy whatever and whoever they tag as the opposition.
In some ways this is analog to the idea of finding obscure bugs in software.
One approach is to do the work, explore very rare corner cases, privately contact the company to make them aware of it so they can fix it before it becomes public knowledge. That is constructive and useful for society.
The other approach is to immediately take the information public and use it to try to destroy the company, product and people as well as their reputation to the extent possible. That is not useful to society at all.
We need to stop this nonsense or we are going to become victims of our own stupidity. I don't know how else to say it.
You have in Elon Musk who has been dedicated to advancing society with everything he touches. Instead of embracing his work and helping push it forward, you have political/ideological activists and organizations dedicated to nothing less than destroying him and his work.
How the hell is this good for society? What is left if we don't have anyone like him left in this society? I can name a few countries where this is the case. It ain't pretty. Wake the fuck up!
Well, I mean, personally I think that society would be a lot better off if that arsehole would think a bit more before he tweeted, so I expect we’re not going to agree.