Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey yesterday sued Media Matters in an attempt to protect Elon Musk and X from the nonprofit watchdog group's investigations into hate speech on the social network. Bailey's lawsuit claims that "Media Matters has used fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to trick advertisers into removing their advertisements from X, formerly Twitter, one of the last platforms dedicated to free speech in America."
Bailey didn't provide much detail on the alleged fraud but claimed that Media Matters is guilty of "fraudulent manipulation of data on X.com." That's apparently a reference to Media Matters reporting that X placed ads for major brands next to posts touting Hitler and Nazis. X has accused Media Matters of manipulating the site's algorithm by endlessly scrolling and refreshing.
Bailey yesterday issued an investigative demand seeking names and addresses of all Media Matters donors who live in Missouri and a range of internal communications and documents regarding the group's research on Musk and X. Bailey anticipates that Media Matters won't provide the requested materials, so he filed the lawsuit asking Cole County Circuit Court for an order to enforce the investigative demand.
"Because Media Matters has refused such efforts in other states and made clear that it will refuse any such efforts, the Attorney General seeks an order... compelling Media Matters to comply with the CID [Civil Investigative Demand] within 20 days," the lawsuit said.
Media Matters slams Musk and Missouri AG
Media Matters, which is separately fighting similar demands made by Texas, responded to Missouri's legal action in a statement provided to Ars today.
Advertisement"Far from the free speech advocate he claims to be, Elon Musk has actually intensified his efforts to undermine free speech by enlisting Republican attorneys general across the country to initiate meritless, expensive, and harassing investigations against Media Matters in an attempt to punish critics," Media Matters President Angelo Carusone said. "This Missouri investigation is the latest in a transparent endeavor to squelch the First Amendment rights of researchers and reporters; it will have a chilling effect on news reporters."
Musk thanked Bailey for filing the lawsuit in a post that said, "Media Matters is doing everything it can to undermine the First Amendment. Truly an evil organization."
Bailey is seeking the names and addresses of all Media Matters donors from Missouri since January 1, 2023, and the amounts of each donation. He wants all promotional or marketing material sent to potential donors and documents showing how the donations were used.
Ads next to pro-Nazi content
Several of Bailey's demands relate to the Media Matters article titled, "As Musk endorses antisemitic conspiracy theory, X has been placing ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to pro-Nazi content." Bailey wants all "documents related to the article, or to the events described in the article."
The Media Matters article displayed images of advertisements next to pro-Nazi posts. Musk previously sued Media Matters over the article, claiming the group "manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X's largest advertisers' paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content."
X said Media Matters did this by "endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X's largest advertisers' paid posts."
X also sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate, but the lawsuit was thrown out by a federal judge yesterday.
Missouri’s other demands
Bailey is demanding from Media Matters all "documents sufficient to identify X accounts owned, controlled, or authorized by you used to obtain the images in the article." He demanded that Media Matters also identify all of the X accounts that it follows from the accounts used for the article research.
Another demand seeks all "communications with Apple, International Business Machine Corporation, Bravo Television Network, NBCUniversal, Oracle Corporation, Comcast Corporation, Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, Warner Bros Discovery Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation, or Sony Group Corporation from November 1, 2023, to March 25, 2024."
Bailey wants a Media Matters employee organizational chart and all internal and external communications regarding the group's "strategy to pressure advertisers into pulling advertisements from the social media platform" and all "documents discussing Elon Musk's purchase of X (formerly Twitter)."
Another demand more generally asks for "communications or materials relating to any policy, strategy, or operation related to generating stories or content intended to cancel, deplatform, demonetize, or otherwise interfere with businesses located in Missouri, or utilized by Missouri residents."
Texas probe chilled speech, group says
The Missouri demands are similar to ones previously made by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Media Matters sued Paxton in January, asking a federal court to block a civil investigative demand issued by Paxton.
When Media Matters provides a more detailed response to the Missouri lawsuit, its arguments are likely to mirror those it made about the Texas investigation. Media Matters said the Texas demand "seeks privileged material in violation of Plaintiff's First Amendment rights" and chills the group's news-gathering abilities.
Although Media Matters believes it is on the right side of the law, the group's lawsuit said that Paxton's demand prevented it from pursuing more research:
Paxton's retaliatory campaign has had its intended effect: Plaintiffs have not published any articles about how Musk's ownership has triggered a rise in political extremism on X since Paxton announced his investigation—despite a flood of tips identifying extremist content on the platform—for fear of further retaliation and harassment.
The Paxton demand seeks "swathes of documents related to Plaintiffs' donors, funding sources, expenditures, and employees, all of which are protected from compelled disclosure under the First Amendment," Media Matters said.
Advertisement"The Demand further requires that Plaintiffs surrender internal communications and files regarding news articles, as well as communications with employees at X and its advertisers, again with no showing of cause," Media Matters wrote. The group quoted a Supreme Court ruling that said police officers are not allowed to "rummage at large in newspaper files or to intrude into or to deter normal editorial and publication decisions."
Supreme Court rulings
Media Matters' lawsuit against Texas also pointed to a Supreme Court ruling in Americans For Prosperity Foundation V. Bonta, Attorney General Of California. The 2021 ruling invalidated a state law requiring charities to provide to the attorney general the names and addresses of donors who contributed more than $5,000 in a single year.
The California law required charities renewing their state registrations to file copies of their Internal Revenue Service Form 990, including the Schedule B document requiring disclosure of names and addresses. The Supreme Court ruled "that California's disclosure requirement is facially invalid because it burdens donors' First Amendment rights and is not narrowly tailored to an important government interest."
Media Matters also cited NAACP v. Alabama from 1958, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the NAACP did not have to provide its membership lists to the state. The ruling said that "compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute... a restraint on freedom of association."
Media Matters complained that Texas demanded communications with external groups such as "prominent civil rights organizations as well as technology experts and research organizations focused on the challenges of content moderation on X." This compelled disclosure is similar to the requirements struck down by the Supreme Court in the 2021 and 1958 cases, the group said.
