 The Center for Countering Digital Hate recently released a report that confirms what many of us have seen on Twitter. The proliferation of hate speech since Elon Musk took it over specifically from users with blue checks who pay for Twitter. Now what they did is they looked at 100 accounts that subscribed to Twitter Blue and they found accounts that have posted explicitly hateful things about minority groups that violate Twitter's terms of use, specifically pro-Hitler rhetoric, anti-Semitism, explicit racism, and even calls for the deaths of LGBTQ plus people. And after reporting all of these tweets, Twitter failed to act on 99% of them even though they violate Twitter's terms of use, which means that Twitter isn't just allowing paid subscribers to break their own rules, but they're also promoting these tweets in the algorithm. Now this is something, again, that we've all experienced. But these kinds of reports are bad news for Twitter, not just because the user experience has deteriorated because of the way that he's managed the platform, but also because it hurts Twitter's bottom line obviously, since it dissuades brands from wanting to buy ads from this company that allows this to go on. But rather than addressing the hate in a meaningful way, what is Elon Musk trying to do? Well, he's instead trying to coerce brands into advertising by threatening to remove their verification badges if they don't purchase ads, as New York Times reporter Eric Lipton explained. But to make matters worse, he is pathetically trying to silence the organization that published this report. As the New York Times explains, X Corp, the parent company of the social media company, sent a letter on July 20th to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that conducts research on social media, accusing the organization of making a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally and its digital advertising business specifically and threatening to sue. The letter added that the Center was funded by Twitter's competitors or foreign governments in support of an ulterior agenda. Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate said, Elon Musk's actions represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research. He added that Mr. Musk wanted to stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers. The Center also said it did not accept any funding from tech companies, governments, or their affiliates. In a blog post Monday evening, X announced that it had filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate for actively working to prevent free expression. The suit was filed in federal court in the Northern District of California. Yeah, so it is incredibly fucking ironic to me that he is accusing the CCDH of trying to prevent free expression while he is literally trying to intimidate them with lawsuits to get them to shut up. Make it make sense. But I mean, according to him, praising Hitler and calling for the mass deaths of queer people is perfectly permissible speech that must be protected on his platform. However, if you make fun of him, that's a different story. That just can't be tolerated and they've got to take action to remove it. That speech that cannot be protected. That's some Nazi logic there, literally. And financially, on its face, it makes sense that he wouldn't want to take action against blue-checked Nazis and piss them off when they're paying him $8 a month. But I mean, think about it in a different way. Suppose that you are a businessman who's very savvy and you acknowledge that, in the grand scheme of things, their subscription fees probably pale in comparison to the ad revenue that they could be making if Twitter wasn't a fucking cesspool. Wouldn't that make more sense? Isn't the long-term brand value of Twitter more important to Elon Musk? Well, of course not, because we're talking about a man who literally killed billions of dollars in his own company's brand value by renaming it to X. So contrary to popular belief, he is not a savvy businessman. He's going off of vibes and vibes alone and he likes the Nazi vibes but doesn't like anyone who criticizes him. And side note, this absolute fucking moron thought it'd be a good idea to display the X logo on top of Twitter's headquarters with literal fucking strobe lights only to subsequently turn them off after tenants from the apartment complex that lives across the street complained because of course they would complain. I mean, it is evident that he has never for once, even for a second, thought about anyone but himself in his pathetic life. But back to the lawsuit because he is a very litigious person, which is evident when you look at his action over the course of the last couple of months. The New York Times continues, the letter was at least the third legal threat or action by X Corp in the last two months. In May, it sent a letter to Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chief executive, accusing the tech giant of improperly using its data. This month, it also sent a letter to Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, saying it had copied Twitter's trade secrets when creating threads a new social app. X also sued Watchtow, Lipton, Rosen and Katz, a leading corporate law firm this month over what it said were unjust payments related to Mr Musk's 44 billion acquisition of Twitter. In other words, this supposedly savvy businessman is really, really good at making friends. Now, CCDH responded on Twitter, and thankfully, they're not backing down. They write, Elon Musk has claimed that he is a free speech absolutist, but he is now using his attorneys to try to silence CCDH with bogus legal threats. Billionaires can't bully us or our attorney. They continue, you read that right. The richest man in the world is spending time and money to silence his critics with lawfare. Elon Musk's lawyer sent us a letter filled with what our attorney described as ridiculous threats. They later add, Elon Musk is targeting CCDH because we're a leading voice exposing how hate speech and lies skyrocketed on Twitter under his ownership. By threatening us, Elon Musk is trying to hide the truth about his own failures and save his plummeting ad revenues. And they also share an image with additional findings showing how bad Twitter has gone since Musk took over. And again, none of their findings here are surprising. It's what we've all experienced. But I think that they are correct to point out why he's going after them specifically. It's because their findings get headlines. Their findings are hurting the platform's ability to attract advertisers. Because then, if you advertise on Twitter, then there's going to be questions, why would you support this platform, give money to this platform that allows Nazis to remain unchecked on the platform? You know, and rather than trying to address everyone's concerns and make the platform actually usable again, he's just choosing to shoot the messenger. But I mean, regardless if he is able to silence the CCDH or not, which I don't believe he will be able to do that, even if he's successful with this lawsuit, people can just see that the platform is terrible. I personally have stopped using it as frequently. It's just a cesspool and seeing all of the hatred elevated to the top algorithmically is not good for my mental health. And I'm sure that other people feel the same. But I mean, I'm sure that nobody is surprised by this move from Elon Musk, especially considering how stupid his antics have been over the last year and knowing firsthand that this person is not a brilliant genius, you know, a brilliant businessman. He's just a petulant man, baby. But either way, another instance of supposed free speech absolutist Elon Musk going against the very value that he purports to support.