Elon Musk’s X Corp has accused the European Climate Foundation of assisting an anti-hate speech campaign group in conducting research against its rebranded Twitter platform.
The claim was made in a blogpost on Monday alleging that the ECF had provided the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) with access to Brandwatch, a software tool that allows organizations to monitor posts on Twitter, which Musk renamed X last month.
“The CCDH gained this access with the cooperation of the European Climate Foundation, which violated their contractual obligations to Brandwatch by providing credentials to CCDH,” stated the post.
X Corp is pursuing a lawsuit against CCDH in a federal US court, alleging that CCDH scraped data from the former Twitter platform and gained unauthorized access to Brandwatch. In response to the legal complaint, CCDH has accused Musk of engaging in behavior “straight out of the authoritarian playbook.”
The lawsuit filed last week against CCDH includes an unnamed entity, referred to as a “Doe defendant,” that allegedly shared its login credentials with CCDH.
X’s lawyers argue that CCDH used “flawed methodologies to promote incorrect and misleading narratives.”
The filing from last week also stated that several unidentified advertisers have halted spending on the platform, paused advertising, or chosen not to reactivate campaigns after reading CCDH’s work. The filing indicates that this includes large multinational corporations, resulting in advertising delays costing tens of millions of dollars.
Musk, who identifies as a “free speech absolutist,” claimed in an interview with the BBC in April that hate speech and misinformation had decreased since he acquired the site for $44bn last October.
Imran Ahmed, the founder and CEO of CCDH, stated last week that he has no intentions of suspending research into the spread of hateful content on the social media platform.
Since Musk’s takeover, CCDH has consistently published research on the social media platform’s content.
The European Climate Foundation, which financially supports campaign groups addressing global heating, has been contacted for comment.