Last week Media Matters published a piece showing advertisements on Twitter being served up next to antisemitic posts. Elon Musk said the claim was wrong and filed a lawsuit.
As far as I'm concerned, this is what SLAPP laws are for, and they don't get used nearly enough. Musk's suit is nothing more than an attempt by a guy with bottomless riches to bankrupt someone he doesn't like.¹
But at least Musk and Twitter are private actors who have no special responsibility to the public. That can't be said for the attorney general of Texas, an elected officer. Nonetheless, he decided to stick his oar in:
Paxton hasn't actually done anything yet, and he probably won't. But this is still an egregious abuse of power by a public official. Every conservative organization concerned about free speech should be denouncing this. Instead, crickets.
¹Also stupid, since it will keep the whole thing in the public eye and probably alienate even more advertisers.
The questions before him will be simple: Who was harmed, and how were they harmed?
There is no nexus in Texas. He'll spent taxpayer dollars pursuing a political boogeyman and you know who to blame: Texas senators.
The first question is did Media Matters tell the truth? If they did, the case is over. They don't even proceed to the point of considering actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth, let alone any question of damages.
I appreciate the point, but the first issues are of venue and standing.
The question you're asking is central to the lawsuit, and presumably the Northern District of Texas' judge appointed by Trump will allow the lawsuit to go forward to resolve that question in a trial. To avoid this bias, venue and standing is resolved first.
From Twitter's own statement: "They repeatedly refreshed their timelines to find a rare instance of ads serving next to the content they chose to follow."
In other words, Twitter has admitted that what Media Matters claimed was accurate. Ads can appear next to this kind of content. MM didn't say it happened often, or to everyone. Just that it had happened. And Twitter confirmed it. In a society governed by laws and reason, it would be case closed.
But as others have pointed out: it's Texas, whee neither laws nor reason necessarily prevail.
Hey it's that right wing love of free speech.
You can literally say this -- in jest, obviously -- about 20 times a day these days.
Paxton's press release is especially hilarious on this score too.
"Texan is the National Laboratory for bad government."
--- Molly Ivins
Will the same Court that said the NAACP did not have standing say Kenny does?
As it happens. Texas has a pretty broad anti-SLAPP law. I'm sure they conceived it would only be used by godless liberals.
https://www.rcfp.org/anti-slapp-guide/texas/
In liberal states, anti-SLAPP laws tend to be shit, which accounts for why they don't get used enough.
Since the case has been filed in federal court, Texas's laws don't really matter.
The press release from yesterday says an investigation has been opened, not that a suit has been filed. He also specifically mentions Texas law, not federal law.
The suit was filed by Twitter's idiot counsel, not an AG, so far.
What in the fuck is this thing the cops have in a place called Pullman, which is probably not in Texas,
https://twitter.com/PullmanPolice/status/1726678386813399376
What do they anticipate doing with it?
edit: per the website they plan to combat 'emerging threats'.
Per an image search, it would seem to be a surplus one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_MaxxPro Perhaps the MaxxPro Dash DXM Ambulance variant.
If you don't want to isolate the image from the twitter post, here is the search URL:
https://lens.google.com/search?ep=gsbubu&hl=en&re=df&p=AbrfA8oM_F8lgSNJREp02Fqu28SG8eSnL_S6YcLqu-wPni4ncJx-Qpfl2aXkFxxh9Q6V4llLuGWPR-ecHdU3fVRAcFjA5MeNGgr155mi3f5bpDLSd6nsBy1tkHKzP_R7VZgGqZpa1xn1kRmAPs5HZkY0fHrlKsAouyjPC6NSmeQrUKkBtnRSqW4mABqJaOXRlOI8KSPBUXAq-VZcWw%3D%3D#lns=W251bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsIkVrY0tKR05oWldKa04yTmtMVE0yT1RBdE5EWmxOUzFpT0RBMUxUVTFOR1F6WkdabU5URm1OQklmYjNwb2IyTnFhVmc0T0dkamEwaDRiR3BST0hJemVEaHZVMmc1VTNaNFp3PT0iLG51bGwsbnVsbCxbW251bGwsbnVsbCwiMi0wIl0sWyI2NDYyNTZhYy01ZTA0LTQ4NGMtYTEyZS05YmY3ZWE2N2Q3ODQiXV1d
I can't help but feel that the presence of highly militarized equipment like this is something that is just dying to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You're not wrong.
https://theconversation.com/police-with-lots-of-military-gear-kill-civilians-more-often-than-less-militarized-officers-141421
When you think about it, giving military weapons to untrained civilians who have near-immunity from prosecution, might not be the smartest thing our federal government has done.
(And yes, whatever their police academy or academic backgrounds, they're untrained with military gear like this. It doesn't just slot in to civilian use, there are obvious reasons you generally don't want this stuff anywhere other than storage or war zones.)
+1
These things are handed out like candy. And like toddlers high on sugar, police use them for no other purpose in the first years as any child with a new toy - because it's so cool. Once maintenance starts eating into the smaller budgets, they begin to gather dust.
The website being: https://www.pullman-wa.gov/government/departments/police_department/news___statistics/urban_rescue_vehicle
Judging from the map, clearly Pullman, WA must be prepared to cope with threats from Moscow. Moscow, ID that is.
Maybe the Sovereign Citizen idgits are active in the area?
It's in Washington State, and is where the "State University" resides, five miles from the Idaho border and ten from the University of Idaho. That little corner of the world is an intellectual powerhouse, and with so many mouthy "kids" on their hands, the Pullman Cops felt the need to "Be Prepared".
The police department in my smallish burgh got a surplus BearKat armored vehicle a few years back. I think they've used it once or twice. I always thought they should use it for public relations by putting keg coolers in the back with taps on the outside and use it at the summertime Music on Main events. They could call it the BeerKat!
Bearcats are Ford F550 super duty trucks with extra steel. Not even mine resistive. But your idea is way better use of the thing!
MRAP's came about because of...
https://youtu.be/3jPgljRvzQw?si=cGFGo1D8M6p9HaUq
Personally, I don't mind at all that Elon Musk wants us to continue talking about how he's gone full Mein Kampf [1]. If he needs the world to know he's an emotionally stunted antisemitic twerp, far be it from me to get in his way.
It is one of the few times I agree with him - more people should know what a bigoted, racist authoritarian shithead Elon Musk is.
[1] This is not an exaggeration. The rant he endorsed looks like a rewrite of a passage from the book making the same point. It may even be that.
Yeah, it's a total nonstarter of a lawsuit, Media Matters will wipe for floor with him.
I think their stunt is stupid - it doesn't matter if they restricted ads' proximity to defamatory content, it matters that the defamatory content is being published.
But damn, he's so stupid on this.
The thing is there's nothing anyone can do about rampant anti-Semtism on X. It's protected speech, and with a raging anti-Semite in charge, it will continue.
But people can try to demonetize it, to make sure that X does not profit from promoting hate speech. And showing companies that their ads can appear next to virulent neo-Nazi propaganda appears to be an effective way of doing that.
It may seem "stupid" but it is one of the few ways anti-hate groups have of making Musk accountable.
It is speech located on a platform owned by a private entity, so they have the right to do anything they want in terms of censorship. Before Elmo, Twitter would remove hate speech and de-platform the culprits because it was good for business (selling ads).
No, it is not.
Harmful and defamatory speech is not protected by the first amendment except by in-group discrimination.
Not sure what country you are thinking about, but in the good old US of A, you can write or say all the vile, horrible, hurtful, racists shit you want, and you can defame anyone you want, and but for a few exceptions, the Government can't do a anything to stop you. If your speech includes a threat of violence or is likely to endanger people, like yelling fire in the middle of a crowded theater, you may run afoul of the law.
You can defame anyone you want, but it risks a civil lawsuit by the person or entity that you defamed. It would not be the government who is suing you. Your free speech does not obligate any other party to publish such speech. You can also publish anyone's copywrited work, but again, you could face a civil lawsuit.
Texas is a legendary state, with corruption and criminality to match in its governance. Yet even so, Paxton (say it loud, say it proud) is a creature from the abyssal depths. And Texas seems to be proud of him.
I wouldn’t say Texas is proud of him. Hell, the Republican House impeached him.
The only reason he wasn’t convicted and removed from office is because his billionaire sugar daddy and Trump threatened to primary any senator that dared to actually bring him to justice.
Some day Republicans may become disgusted with the whims of billionaires and deranged sociopaths, but for now, they’re quite happy with preserving straight white male “Christian” supremacy.
Can someone name a conservative organization that actually, genuinely, cares about free speech?
The Democratic party.