As Twitchy reported, Elon Musk said that he was going to file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters for America on Monday. We haven’t heard of any developments on that front, but we’ll let you know if we do. Musk claimed that Media Matters was trying to game the system to produce an outcome that would display ads from high-profile advertisers next to vile content. Media Matter would then present the screenshots of ads next to some white supremacist tweet.
Michael Shellenberger of The Twitter Files fame said they tried to replicate Media Matters’ experience but couldn’t:
The media say X is placing Apple, IBM, and other ads near pro-Nazi content, but it’s not. We tried various ways to replicate Media Matters’ research and couldn’t. The real goal of Media Matters isn’t to fight antisemitism. It’s to destroy X as a free speech platform. pic.twitter.com/rpxANwkMDx
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) November 20, 2023
Their goal absolutely is to destroy X. That’s why they exist … to drive advertisers away from conservative media.
Media Matters is pure evil https://t.co/9bdMWyczs6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2023
Media Matters created 3 accounts and followed 30 accounts similar to the ones in the article. They then constantly refreshed the timeline of posts (13X the number of ads served to this user as opposed to the median.) 50 impressions served agains the the content in the article,…
— Joe Benarroch (@benarroch_joe) November 18, 2023
Media Matters created 3 accounts and followed 30 accounts similar to the ones in the article. They then constantly refreshed the timeline of posts (13X the number of ads served to this user as opposed to the median.) 50 impressions served against the content in the article, out of 5.5B served the whole day, points to the fact of how efficiently our model avoids content for advertisers. Data wins over allegations.
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They followed a handful of Nazis and kept hitting refresh until an ad appeared.
They pulled a scam
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2023
So Media Matters pounded on a vending machine until a candy bar eventually dropped, and then claimed with a straight face that it just came out on its own as they walked by.
— Mark Dice (@MarkDice) November 20, 2023
What MM didn’t count on the as the sophistication of the data and monitoring of X staff.
The data was captured. It’s genius what @elonmusk did here.
They’ve been busted. Now they must pay.
— Crypto Punkard (@cryptopunkard) November 18, 2023
Creating a scenario through manipulation to try and get the results they wanted. As always, Media Matters is a menace.
— MoSmith (@MoSmithHMC) November 18, 2023
BREAKING: Media Matters created accounts and gamed the X server to create false impressions for their article
This isn’t journalism, this is a hoax pic.twitter.com/vO1HVDBuEo
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) November 19, 2023
Fraud is both a civil and criminal violation. There are 2 dozen+ conservative state Attorneys General.
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) November 19, 2023
I think sometimes people forget that Media Matters was created, shaped and governed for a long time by David Brock, arguably the single most craven, deceitful and amoral scumbag DC politics has ever seen.
There was no way for anything decent to be spawned from that rotted root: https://t.co/v9XNkj4d6G
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 20, 2023
This is like Jussie Smollett but an entire company. #justiceforjuicy
— DogeGPT (@DogecoinGPT) November 19, 2023
They could’ve also easily tricked the system into displaying ads for any company they wanted (assuming they were advertising on X) by abusing X retargeting ads.
All they’d have to do is visit any advertiser website or interact with them prior to refreshing the X feed. @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/zY8uZPan5f
— Sonny C. 🌴 (@SonnyCrockettJR) November 19, 2023
@MediaMattersZA is absolutely evil…and has been for years.
Now they have reduced themselves to blackmailing @elonmusk and other social media sites.— SLC (@slcrivers) November 18, 2023
Here are some old blog posts from the President of Media Matters Angelo Caruson. He made fun of trans people, mocked “jewry” and “jewish gold,” and praised a member of the KKK.
Media Matters led a campaign for advertisers to leave X because they claimed ads were appearing near… pic.twitter.com/tNjf5tkm85
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 19, 2023
“Media Matters led a campaign for advertisers to leave X because they claimed ads were appearing near white supremacist content. Media Matters is trash.”
Fun fact: Everyone in conservative media has a Media Matters employee to “shadow” them. They are treated as traditional beats. They watch and listen to everything their targets say and work overtime to maliciously distort context while never retracting or correcting. https://t.co/tioNvoguRW
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) November 20, 2023
Yep … Media Matters “researchers” do nothing but watch conservative content until they think they’ve found a gotcha. Then they can scare away advertisers. It’s a pretty pathetic way to make a living.
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