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Missouri Hits Media Matters With Notice Of Investigation, Demands Preservation Of Evidence

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by Tyler Durden
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On Monday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced that his office has notified Media Matters of a pending investigation based on claims brought by X and Elon Musk against the Democratic-operative-founded 'watchdog' organization accusing them of using fraud to solicit donations from Missourians against its efforts to target X.

Media Matters president Angelo Carusone

"We have reason to believe Media Matters used fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to trick advertisers into pulling out of X, the last platform dedicated to free speech in America. Radicals are attempting to kill Twitter because they cannot control it, and we are not going to let Missourians get ripped off in the process," said Bailey, adding "I’m fighting to ensure progressive tyrants masquerading as news outlets cannot manipulate the marketplace in order to wipe out free speech."

Media Matters is accused of having "falsely and deceptively manipulated the algorithm on X (formerly known as Twitter) through coordinated, inauthentic behavior."

Specifically, Musk's suit claims:

Media Matters has opted for new tactics in its campaign to drive advertisers from X. 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.

Media Matters executed this plot in multiple steps, as X’s internal investigations have revealed.

First, Media Matters  accessed accounts that had been active for at least 30 days, bypassing X’s ad filter for new users. Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers. The end result was a feed precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers.

But this activity still was not enough to create the pairings of advertisements and content that Media Matters aimed to produce.

Media Matters therefore resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts.

In his letter, Bailey also demands that Media Matters preserve all evidence in the case.

"I have reason to believe that your firm’s alleged actions may have violated Missouri consumer protection laws, including laws that prohibit nonprofit entities from soliciting funds under false pretenses. E.g., Mo. Rev. Stat. § 407.020.1.  I am especially concerned that Media Matters’ actions, if proven true, have hampered free speech by targeting an expressly pro free speech social media platform in an attempt to cause it financial harm while defrauding Missourians in the process," the letter continues. "You are thus hereby instructed to preserve all records that may relate to your alleged effort to engage in coordinated, inauthentic behavior on social media platforms in order to generate false statements that were used to solicit charitable contributions under false pretenses."

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