On March 25, 2024, Kaplan Hecker & Fink secured a dismissal in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in X Corp v. Center for Countering Digital Hate Inc., et al. The lawsuit alleged that CCDH violated X’s terms of service by illegally acquiring the data used in researching the prevalence of hate speech on the platform. Judge Charles Breyer struck the lawsuit’s state-law claims in accordance with California’s anti-SLAPP law, which forbids nuisance lawsuits intended to punish the exercise of free speech, and dismissed the lawsuit’s federal claim.
“Today’s decision proves that even the world’s wealthiest man cannot bend the rule of law to his will,” said Robbie Kaplan, lead attorney for CCDH. “We are grateful for the district court’s careful and comprehensive opinion, which refuses to allow Elon Musk and X Corp to weaponize the courts to censor good-faith research and reporting.”
The KHF team included Roberta Kaplan, John Quinn, Matthew Craig, Amit Jain, and law clerk Avisha Sabaghian.
Read the court order here.