Elon Musk's decision to sue a nonprofit critical of Twitter has sparked three Democratic lawmakers to push back on the lawsuit, which they say risks silencing independent research into social media platforms.
“Independent research is critical to understanding the proliferation of hate speech and extremism online,” Reps. Lori Trahan (D-MA), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Sean Casten (D-IL) wrote in a Tuesday letter. It arrived a day after Musk filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) for publishing research that argues Twitter is failing to crack down on racist, homophobic, and antisemitic tweets.
Twitter — also known as X — claims the CCDH is an activist group masquerading as a nonprofit that's conspiring to drive advertisers away from Twitter by using flawed research. However, the CCDH says Musk, a pro-free speech advocate, is simply being a hypocrite in trying to silence legitimate criticism of his company.
The controversy triggered the three Democratic lawmakers to send a letter to Musk and Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, arguing the company is taking a “hostile stance” against independent research into social media platforms.
“By filing suit against the CCDH, X is uniquely resisting those important efforts and stifling unbiased research in the public interest,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter also demands the company answer six questions about opening Twitter’s API access to independent researchers. Earlier this year, the company began closing off free access to its API, which previously allowed researchers to examine all the tweets flowing across the platform. Instead, Twitter is reportedly asking third parties to pay at least $42,000 per month for access.
The three lawmakers noted they already sent a letter to Musk in March about closing off the API access to researchers. “However, we have yet to receive a response,” the letter says. “In the meantime, X’s actions have hamstrung attempts by academic researchers to research not only X itself, but also use social media data to conduct countless and wide-ranging research projects in the public interest.”
The letter goes on to ask whether Twitter has allowed independent researchers to verify its claims that the company is successfully stopping hate speech. The lawmakers are demanding Musk and Yaccarino respond to the questions by Aug. 15. Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.