Journalist Michael Shellenberger broke down Twitter’s new lawsuit against a left-wing media watchdog on Fox News on Monday, alleging the outlet “manipulated” claims to “create a story” about antisemitism on the platform.
Shellenberger appeared on Fox News’ show “Jesse Watters Primetime” to discuss the current defamation lawsuit that Twitter filed against Media Matters on Monday. Host Jesse Watters asked the journalist if the lawsuit could possibly “bankrupt” the media watch group, knowing “what kind of lawyers” billionaire Twitter owner Elon Musk can afford. (RELATED: Elon Musk’s X Sues Media Matters)
“Well, you know, I’m a huge First Amendment advocate, obviously I want free speech — people even have the right to lie. But you can’t commit fraud. That’s one of the restrictions on free speech, ” Shellenberger stated.
“You can’t do what Media Matters appears to be doing here, which is to manipulate in a situation to lie about what’s actually going on with the business in order, specifically, to hurt that business.”
“They created the story they want to sell here, which is that somehow there’s a lot of antisemitism on X. That somehow the brands are being associated with that antisemitism. They had that in mind before they did their research,” Shellenberger continued.
“So this is clearly a case where they’re using fraudulent methods to lie to manipulate the platform, to lie to businesses on business questions — that starts to look like fraud. That’s a very serious charge that could be very expensive and dangerous for Media Matters.”
Media Matters released a report last week alleging that Musk’s social media platform had neo-Nazi posts run next to ads from companies like Apple and IBM, according to NBC News. Since the allegations, Musk has pushed back against the claims stating that they “completely misrepresented the real user experience on X.” (RELATED: Elon Musk’s X Back In The Ad Industry’s Crosshairs After Scathing Report, Scandalous Post Land It In Hot Water)
Media Matters President Angelo Carusone stated that the site will defend itself, calling the lawsuit “frivolous” and that it is meant to “bully X’s critics into silence,” according to NBC News.
Since the original report was released by Media Matters, major advertisers like Apple, Disney, and IBM have pulled their campaigns from the social media platform. However, the Babylon Bee retaliated against the narrative, committing $250,000 in ads for the social media platform, stating that the people are attacking Musk because “they hate freedom.”