A federal judge ordered the social media platform X to turn over antisemitic and neo-Nazi posts, which it removed from extremist accounts, to Media Matters for America.
Reed O’Connor, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, ruled on Thursday that X must produce posts that were publicly available before the platform deleted them.
Elon Musk’s social media company sued Media Matters, a progressive nonprofit that monitors conservative media, in November 2023. It accused the nonprofit of “knowingly and maliciously” manufacturing side-by-side images that showed advertiser posts alongside neo-Nazi and other extremist content.
X alleges that Media Matters presented the images as representative of what ordinary users encounter on the platform to portray X as “a social media platform dominated by neo-Nazism and antisemitism” and drive away advertisers, publishers and users.
Media Matters sought posts from the accounts featured in its reporting, including content that X later removed or accounts it suspended. The group argued that the material could show that X “knew or should have known that these accounts were producing distasteful content.”
The judge ordered X to produce the posts and related unredacted internal communications by Aug. 31.
