Why is it OK for an American company to headquarter in one state then cherry pick another in which to file a lawsuit? Surely a company should be governed by the laws of the state in which they are based. It seems weird to choose the set of laws you want to be judged by when the defendant cannot do the same.
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Because the system is set up so that the powerful can fuck over the powerless in any way they want.
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It shouldn't be OK and Media Matters will surely file for a change of venue. They're located in DC and Twitter in California. Heck, Twitters own TOS says that your use of the service is governed by California law, so any claim that they fraudulently used the service should be handled in California.
But activist judges are also known to deny motions for made up reasons, so Twitter starts in Texas in hopes an activist judge keeps the case there to "stick it to the liberals."
Texas is famous for judges that keep the venue there, with laws that are friendly to corporations. It's why it's the most popular state for these shitbird corporate lawyers to file suits.
Apparently X is registered in Nevada.
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Surely a company should be governed by the laws of the state in which they are based
This is not true and wouldn't make why sense: let's say you are a delivery company and one of your drivers runs over a dog in Texas. The lawsuit can be filed in Texas, regardless of whether your company is in Texas, California, or even outside the united states. The place you are incorporated in doesn't change the damages or laws you violated when running over the dog. Of course you can also move the venue to the state the company is based in.
You cannot (generally) move it to another state, since that state doesn't even have jurisdiction over any part of the incident.
The internet is just special in the sense that really something that happened on the internet happened everywhere on earth at the same time, meaning any venue is a place where potential damages were accrued.
Agree that if an incident happens in a particular jurisdiction, the local court should handle it. That makes sense, no argument here. But here they get to choose the set of laws because there was no physical location? That just feels wrong somehow. Anyway there is a physical location and if anything, the incident was 'perpetrated' by a person who was physically located somewhere at the time. It should be handled by the court local to them at the time. In the case of organisations, I guess this would mean where the defendant company operates from. Or if we accept it is virtual and everywhere then, it should be governed by federal laws not state laws.
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Makes sense, but how can things like the slapp suit from bob murray have been in a state (west virginia) neither hbo ( who called bob a lot of shit and is located in new york ) , bob murray ( utah) or his company were in?
Edit: excuse me, i meant bob murray, not bill murrey
Wait, what is this about Bill Murrey? I'm out-of-the-loop...
EDIT: Never mind, I was thinking of Bill. Bill Murray. He's still cool, apparently...
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I think your example covers the case where a company has a lawsuit filed against it. And the object of the lawsuit is an event that occurred in a particular state. But why should a company be able to originate a lawsuit in the state of their choosing? Shouldn’t it either be their home state or the home state of whom ever they’re suing? Or wherever the events in question took place?
The issue with the internet is that it did take place in texas as well: The news article was available in texas, so the news corp can be sued there. Basically the argument is: "Media Matters harmed X's brand in texas using misleading information" (you can read their arguments for filing in texas under the "Jurisdiction and Venue" section of their filing).
Also remember that this is currently X's wish list: Media Matters can file for a change in venue.
Edit: Quick update.
Looking at their filing, the case will probably fail under a motion for summary judgment: They basically agree with Media Matters that they did show ads under extremist's posts. They simply argue that you need to push the twitter algorithm to its limits by doomscrolling for a long time until the algorithm fails. However, this doesn't make any of the facts provided by Media Matters (https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle) wrong.
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It was filed in federal court. Why they filed in a federal court in Texas is not yet clear.
Iirc musk lives there
It was handed to the same trump judge that struck down student loan forgiveness.
Its super clear why he filed it there, and it isn't because he lives there.
The instant they enter discovery, he's going to have to drop the suit like usual or hand over an awful lot of evidence of interacting with some extremely shitty racist ass hats. I'm excited for either outcome.
Oh... I want discovery to go deep. Like all the way to the market manipulation that caused him to buy Twitter in the first place... didn't he avoid the lawsuit and buy Twitter just to avoid discovery? Let's discover all!
Pretty much, yep. What did end up in discovery was an absolute embarrassment to anybody with a shred of dignity. Obviously Musk has none of that, so we're here again.
Please consider setting up an account on Mastodon and slowly move over as it takes time to build your network just like it did when you first joined Twitter. Get off Twitter.
As much as I hate twitter and musk like you, mastdon can not be used for news but solely a social network app, which I'm not intrested in any. Tried it for a while and mostly it's cat pics.
That is why I suggest just opening account and cross post so that over time the network can grow. The more who do this the more relevant the content will be on Mastodon. That, or we call all be held as hostages on X and survive to Elon’s desires.
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I know you don't mean him, but that would be funny as shit to see him link a mastodon account, and see what the reaction of the community is to him.
Elon did profess the virtues of decentralized currencies, but that was all just a pump and dump in the end. He could care less about decentralization as he is all about centralization clearly.
Mister "fined by sec for stock manipulation" screams about fraud? Also that situation with the ads should have never been possible in the first place.
Its just SO good
Why do they keep proving this "every accusation is a confession" meme?
That is the white supremacist attitude:
Just because Mr. White can do something doesn't mean anyone else can do it.
As a corollary to that: if anyone else can do something then surely Mr. White can do it, too. Mr. White demands it.
Here alleged white supremacist Elon Musk supports Mr. White's right to say anything and everything while anyone not Mr. White must seek permission.
As someone who struggles internally with my racism I can't tell you how much I hate seeing the richest man in the world reinforce these white supremacist values while I try to strangle them out of my interior life. It is like Jefferson Davis is become 21st century businessman.
As someone on the receiving end of it, thank you for your struggle
Here alleged white supremacist Elon Musk
What do you mean, "alleged white supremacist"?
The guy is an overt white supremacist - end of story.
I can’t tell you how much I hate seeing the richest man in the world reinforce these white supremacist
I guess this is the first time you've been made aware that white supremacism and capitalism have always gone together like a house on fire?
Mr. free speech absolutist.
You misspelled abolitionist.
Respond to their legal service with 💩
Call them a pedo. Instant win.
""""free speech""""
The alleged manipulation involved creating an account that exclusively followed a combination of major brands and extremist content, then “endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed” until it saw a confluence of the two.
Bold move to admit that what was reported was both true and an intended way for ads to be served on Xitter.
I know, right?! "The user has to follow our brands and our extremist content!!!!"
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Your speech is free, as long as you can afford it.
Time to go look up Texas' anti-SLAPP laws ...
According to the article there aren't any. That's why he filed in Texas. I do wonder how he can file in Texas if neither X nor Media Matters is located there. Doesn't that make it simple to file a motion to move the case to California and then use their anti-SLAPP laws?
That's probably what will happen.
In a sensible world. In the real world there is a decent chance some activist judge will deny the motion. Corps love suing in Texas.
How can't he slapp?
In France we also renamed it the David Michigan effect
Well atleast they're admiting the screenshots are legit. Knowing how much people hate this guy, I wouldn't be too surprised if the algorithm manipulation claim was actually true. However you'd think that by this point they would already have optimized their advertising system to prevent this exact thing from happening.
They probably had a solution for it, but mr. “I know better then everyone else” probably took the solution offline while he was dismantling twitter earlier this year
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Nearly simultaneously, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation into Media Matters for “potential fraudulent activity.” Musk posted the news on his X account, stating that “fraud has both civil and criminal penalties.” Musk had previously responded to a tweet by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller that suggested conservative attorneys general (like Paxton) look into fraud charges.
“Media Matters has 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, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.” The alleged manipulation involved creating an account that exclusively followed a combination of major brands and extremist content, then “endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed” until it saw a confluence of the two.
(Musk famously beat a libel suit after falsely dubbing one of his critics a “pedo guy.”) “We are going to continue our work undeterred.
If he sues us, we will win,” the organization’s president Angelo Carusone told The Verge in a previous statement, saying that “Elon Musk has spent the last few days making meritless legal threats, elevating bizarre conspiracy theories, and lobbing vicious personal attacks against his ‘enemies’ online.” Carusone reiterated the sentiment after the suit was filed.
Moving the lawsuit also puts it under the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has proven highly sympathetic to conservative figures who claim they’ve been censored — something Musk has made a centerpiece of his publicity strategy around X.
But she suggested employees “be as fiscally responsible as possible” to offset potential losses from advertisers and exhorted them to “by all means, put your heads together to bring new revenue into the company.”
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