AUSTIN: Social media company X on Monday sued media watchdog group Media Matters, alleging the organisation defamed the platform after it published a report that said ads for major brands had appeared next to posts touting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.

X, formerly Twitter, has faced growing outrage since Media Matters published the report on Thursday, which led IBM, Comcast and several other advertisers to pull ads from the platform in response.

In the lawsuit filed in a US District Court in Texas, X claimed Media Matters “manipulated” the social media platform by using accounts that exclusively followed accounts for major brands or users known to produce fringe content, and “resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing” the feed until it found ads next to extremist posts.

Media Matters’ report misrepresented the typical experience on X “with the intention of harming X and its business,” the company said in the lawsuit.—

Published in Dawn, November 22th, 2023