"Libel tourism" Xs globe-trotting defense of ads on Nazi posts violates TOS, Media Matters says X allegedly ignored the chosen venues in the TOS when filing "thermonuclear" lawsuits. Ashley Belanger Mar 11, 2025 4:59 pm | 18 Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images News Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images News Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreMedia Matters for America (MMFA) has a plan to potentially defuse Elon Musk's "thermonuclear" lawsuits filed so far in three cities around the world, which accuse the nonprofit media watchdog organization of orchestrating a very costly X ad boycott.On Monday, MMFA filed a complaint in a US district court in San Francisco, alleging that X violated its own terms of service by suing MMFA in Texas, Dublin, and Singapore. According to the TOS, MMFA alleged, X requires any litigation over use of its services to be "brought solely in the federal or state courts located in San Francisco County, California, United States.""X Corp.s decision to file in multiple jurisdictions across the globe is intended to chill Media Matters reporting and drive up costsboth of which it has achievedand it is directly foreclosed by Xs own Terms of Service," MMFA's complaint said.MMFA alleged that X's lawsuits all stem from a claim that Media Matters supposedly manipulated X's platform to force ads from major brands to appear alongside posts that touted Hitler or the Nazi party in a way that X claims its algorithm wouldn't organically have allowed. This, X alleged, constituted business disparagement in the US and defamation and malicious falsehoods outside the US.Because the fight is clearly linked to MMFA's use of X's services, MMFA wants the California district court to settle the litigation. They've asked the court for an injunction blocking X's litigation outside California, which they claimed represented X's "vendetta-driven campaign of libel tourism" attempting to bleed MMFA dry by forcing them to raise defenses in foreign cities.X appears to be avoiding filing its claims in California, MMFA suggested, after the same California district court that MMFA chose dismissed X's suit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate over similar reporting on hate speech on X's platform spooking advertisers. In that case, judge Charles Breyer ruled that X's suit was just "about punishing the defendants for their speech," which MMFA alleged is the same in their case. Throughout the "globetrotting litigation," X has never denied that MMFA's report at issue in the suit was truthful, MMFA said."X conceded that depending on what content a user follows and how long theyve had their account, they might see advertisements placed next to extremist content," MMFA alleged.As MMFA sees it, Musk is trying to blame the organization for ad losses spurred by his own decisions after taking over the platformlike cutting content moderation teams, de-amplifying hateful content instead of removing it, and bringing back banned users. Through the lawsuits, Musk allegedly wants to make MMFA pay "hundreds of millions of dollars in lost advertising revenue" simply because its report didn't outline "what accounts Media Matters followed or how frequently it refreshed its screen," MMFA argued, previously likening this to suing MMFA for scrolling on X.MMFA has already spent millions to defend against X's multiple lawsuits, their filing said, while consistently contesting X's chosen venues. If X loses the fight in California, the platform would potentially owe damages from improperly filing litigation outside the venue agreed upon in its TOS."This proliferation of claims over a single course of conduct, in multiple jurisdictions, is abusive," MMFA's complaint said, noting that the organization has a hearing in Singapore next month and another in Dublin in May. And it "does more than simply drive up costs: It means that Media Matters cannot focus its time and resources to mounting the best possible defense in one forum and must instead fight back piecemeal," which allegedly prejudices MMFA's "ability to most effectively defend itself.""Media Matters should not have to defend against attempts by X to hale Media Matters into court in foreign jurisdictions when the parties already agreed on the appropriate forum for any dispute related to Xs services," MMFA's complaint said. "That isthis Court."X still recovering from ad boycottAlthough X CEO Linda Yaccarino started 2025 by signaling the X ad boycott was over, Ars found that external data did not support that conclusion. More recently, Business Insider cited independent data sources last month who similarly concluded that while X's advertiser pool seemed to be increasing, its ad revenue was still "far" from where Twitter was prior to Musk's takeover.Part of the problem was seemingly decreased spending from big brands that did return, like reportedly Apple. Other dips were linked to X's decision to partner with adtech companies, splitting ad revenue with Magnite, Google, and PubMatic, Business Insider reported. The CEO of a marketing consultancy Ebiquity, Ruben Schreurs, told Business Insider that most of the top 100 global advertisers he works with were still hesitant to invest in X, confirming, "no signs of a mass return."For X, the ad boycott has tanked revenue for years, even putting X on the brink of bankruptcy, Musk claimed. The billionaire paid $44 billion for the platform and at the end of 2024, Fidelity estimated that X was worth just $9.4 billion, CNN reported.But at the start of 2025, analysts predicted that advertisers may return to X to garner political favor with Musk, who remains a senior advisor in the Trump administration. Perhaps more importantly in the short-term, sources also told Bloomberg that X could potentially raise as much as Musk paid$44 billionfrom investors willing to help X pay down its debt to support new payments and video products.That could put a Band-Aid on X's financial wounds as Yaccarino attempts to persuade major brands that X isn't toxic (while X sues some of them) and Musk tries to turn the social media platform once known as Twitter into an "everything app" as ubiquitous in the US as WeChat is in China.MMFA alleged that its research showing how toxic X is today has been stifled by Musk's suits spanning three cities, but other groups have filled the gap. The Center for Countering Digital Hate has resumed its reporting since defeating X's lawsuit last March, and most recently University of California, Berkeley, researchers conducted a February analysis showing that "hate speech on the social media platform X rose about 50 percent" in the eight months after Musk's 2022 purchase, which suggests that advertisers had potentially good reason to be spooked by changes at X that seems to continue to keep them at bay today."Musk has continually tried to blame others for this loss in revenue since his takeover," MMFA's complaint said, alleging that all three suits were filed to intimidate MMFA "for having dared to publish an article Musk did not like."Ashley BelangerSenior Policy ReporterAshley BelangerSenior Policy Reporter Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. 18 Comments