How Elon Musk Spent Labor Day Weekend and Why It Matters.
weekend attacking ADL and engaging with some of the once-banned antisemitic users he allowed back on the platform in order to do it.
If you were offline and missed it, Media Matters has a rundown of what happened. But the tl;dr version is that Musk is big mad because ADL has repeatedly pointed out that since Musk’s purchase of Twitter (I refuse to call it X), antisemitism on the platform has increased. Now, ADL is hardly the only organization to show this in its research, but ADL is a well-resourced, longstanding institution with a lengthy record of corporate accountability wins.
But perhaps more relevant here, ADL is a frequent target of the far-right, especially online. Musk is always seeking attention and engagement from far-right reactionaries on Twitter. What better way to get approval from those folks than to threaten to sue the ADL and then boost antisemitic posts about the organization on your own account?
Musk coming for ADL is part of a larger trend — attacks on researchers who study disinformation and hate speech on the tech platforms. One of the Right’s strategies is to attack the credibility of these researchers, what they produce, and the institutions where they work. Republicans in Congress, led by Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, are using their majority in the House to…
