X marks the lawsuit: Elon Musk's social media company sues nonprofit highlighting site's hate speech

abcnews.go.com:

A nonprofit organization that researches links between social media, hate and extremism has been sued by X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter

WASHINGTON — X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has sued a group of researchers — alleging their work highlighting an increase in hate speech on the platform cost the company millions of dollars of advertising revenue.

The suit, filed late Monday night in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, accuses the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate of violating X's terms of service by improperly collecting a vast amount of data for its analysis. The suit also alleges, without offering evidence, that the organization is funded by foreign governments and media companies who view X as competition.

The legal fight between the tech company, which was acquired by Elon Musk last year, and the center could have significant implications for a growing number of researchers and advocacy groups that seek to help the public understand how social media is shaping society and culture.

With offices in the U.S. and United Kingdom, the center regularly publishes reports on hate speech, extremism and harmful behavior on social media platforms like X, TikTok or Facebook. The organization has published several reports critical of Musk’s leadership, detailing an increase in anti-LGBTQ hate speech as well as climate misinformation since his purchase.

In its lawsuit, X alleges the center violated its terms of service by automatically scraping large amounts of data from the site without the company's permission. X also claims the center improperly accessed internal Twitter data, using log-on credentials it obtained from an employee at a separate