X’s globe-trotting defense of ads on Nazi posts violates TOS, Media Matters says

Media Matters for America (MMFA) has a plan to potentially defuse Elon Musk's "thermonuclear" lawsuits filed so far in three cities around the world, which accuse the nonprofit media watchdog organization of orchestrating a very costly X ad boycott.

On Monday, MMFA filed a complaint in a US district court in San Francisco, alleging that X violated its own terms of service by suing MMFA in Texas, Dublin, and Singapore. According to the TOS, MMFA alleged, X requires any litigation over use of its services to be "brought solely in the federal or state courts located in San Francisco County, California, United States."

"X Corp.’s decision to file in multiple jurisdictions across the globe is intended to chill Media Matters’ reporting and drive up costs—both of which it has achieved—and it is directly foreclosed by X’s own Terms of Service," MMFA's complaint said.

MMFA alleges that X's lawsuits all stem from X's claim that Media Matters manipulated X's platform to force ads from major brands to appear alongside posts that touted Hitler or the Nazi Party in a way that X claims its algorithm wouldn't organically have allowed. This, X alleged, constituted business disparagement in the US and defamation and malicious falsehoods outside the US.

Because the fight is clearly linked to MMFA's use of X's services, MMFA wants the California district court to settle the litigation. It has asked the court for an injunction blocking X's litigation outside California, which it claimed represented X's "vendetta-driven campaign of libel tourism" attempting to bleed MMFA dry by forcing them to raise defenses in foreign cities.

X appears to be avoiding filing its claims in California, MMFA suggested, after the same California district court that MMFA chose dismissed X's suit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate over similarly reporting that hate speech on X's platform spooked advertisers. In that case, Judge Charles Breyer ruled that X's suit was just "about punishing the defendants for their speech," which MMFA alleged is the same in its case. Throughout the "globetrotting litigation," X has never denied that MMFA's report at issue in the suit was truthful, MMFA said.

"X conceded that depending on what content a user follows and how long they’ve had their account, they might see advertisements placed next to extremist content," MMFA alleged.

As MMFA sees it, Musk is trying to blame the organization for ad losses spurred by his own decisions after taking over the platform—like cutting content moderation teams, de-amplifying hateful content instead of removing it, and bringing back banned users. Through the lawsuits, Musk allegedly wants to make MMFA pay "hundreds of millions of dollars in lost advertising revenue" simply because its report didn't outline "what accounts Media Matters followed or how frequently it refreshed its screen," MMFA argued, previously likening this to suing MMFA for scrolling on X.

MMFA has already spent millions to defend against X's multiple lawsuits, its filing said, while consistently contesting X's chosen venues. If X loses the fight in California, the platform would potentially owe damages from improperly filing litigation outside the venue agreed upon in its TOS.

"This proliferation of claims over a single course of conduct, in multiple jurisdictions, is abusive," MMFA's complaint said, noting that the organization has a hearing in Singapore next month and another in Dublin in May. And it "does more than simply drive up costs: It means that Media Matters cannot focus its time and resources to mounting the best possible defense in one forum and must instead fight back piecemeal," which allegedly prejudices MMFA's "ability to most effectively defend itself."

"Media Matters should not have to defend against attempts by X to hale Media Matters into court in foreign jurisdictions when the parties already agreed on the appropriate forum for any dispute related to X’s services," MMFA's complaint said. "That is—this Court."

X still recovering from ad boycott

Although X CEO Linda Yaccarino started 2025 by signaling the X ad boycott was over, Ars found that external data did not support that conclusion. More recently, Business Insider cited independent data sources last month who similarly concluded that while X's advertiser pool seemed to be increasing, its ad revenue was still "far" from where Twitter was prior to Musk's takeover.