A Texas judge rejected Media Matters’ request for a US deportation order on Thursday allowing X’s lawsuit over alleged anti-Semitic and racist content. The Verge reported that Northern District of Texas Judge Reed O’Connor denied a motion to dismiss, clearing the way for X’s lawsuit against Media Matters to continue.
Media Matters filed its motion to dismiss in early March on the grounds that X’s lawsuit lacked “personal jurisdiction,” “improper venue” and “failure to state a claim.” O’Connor has dismissed all those claims, according to court records.
A lawsuit filed last year in federal court seeks damages from a media watchdog group for “maliciously manipulated” images that report that X’s platform placed neo-Nazi and white-list content next to images of advertisers causing advertisers to flee the site. The images used by Media Matters were not created but X’s claim is that the aggressive pursuit of racist ad placement by using certain accounts to bypass ad filters has caused irreparable harm to the social media giant.
Elon Musk’s other X-owner companies are located in Texas but are not directly connected to the Media Matters case. UX closed its offices in San Francisco earlier this month and owner Elon Musk announced in July that X headquarters would move to Austin. Tesla moved its headquarters from California to the Lone Star State in 2021 and SpaceX from Delaware earlier this year when a judge ruled out a $56 billion settlement from the state.
However, in dismissing the personal jurisdiction argument, O’Connor noted that two of X’s “blue-chip” advertisers such as AT&T and Oracle covered by Media Matters are based in Texas. He cited the landmark 2002 Internet defamation case Revell v. Lidov cited the 5th Circuit Court’s assertion that “if you’re going to pick a fight in Texas, it’s reasonable to expect it to be settled there.”
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