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Lanon Wee

Democrats Urge Musk to Reassess X's Disposition Toward Unaffiliated Studies of its Platform

Three Democratic legislators are demanding an explanation from Elon Musk regarding his platform's apparently aggressive attitude towards independent research projects.This comes following the legal action X initiated against a non-profit research organization which had discovered an uptick in hateful content after Musk acquired a stake in the company.X took legal action, claiming the organization infringed its terms of service and obtained data unlawfully during its research. Three Democratic lawmakers have expressed their concerns about Elon Musk's social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) taking a "hostile stance" to independent research efforts, after the company sued a nonprofit research group who had found an increase in hate speech post his takeover. In a letter to Musk and X Corp. CEO Linda Yaccarino, Reps. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Sean Casten, D-Ill., said that independent research is important in understanding the spread of hate speech and extremism online, and that it raises a number of important questions about the platform's business practices. The lawmakers pointed to X's lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which had revealed the platform's hate speech upturn. By filing the suit, the lawmakers said X was "unusually resisting" researcher's attempts to make the platform answerable and to carry out assessments for public interest. The letter from the lawmakers asked for an answer to a series of questions sent to the company in March - these questions inquired about X ending the practice of retaliating against journalists and researchers who published negative reports, and also asked if the company had decreased hate speech and extremist content, whether it had been verified by a third party. X said in a statement to CNBC that CCDH's information was misleading and that the research cited in a Bloomberg article had been taken out of context. They also alleged that CCDH had scraped their platform, in violation of their terms of service. CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said the lawsuit was "straight out of the authoritarian playbook", and accused Musk of trying to "shoot the messenger" instead of addressing the toxic atmosphere he created. The lawmakers asked for a response from the company by August 15th. Read the full letter here. Sign up to receive notifications from CNBC on YouTube. Take a look at Billionaire Elon Musk's entrance into the Twitter Headquarters, carrying a sink.

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