X, the company now owning Twitter, has filed a lawsuit against an anti-hate group who had produced research that was criticizing the platform.
X Corp is accusing the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) of breaching the law by gaining unauthorized access to its data, with representatives in the US and UK.
CCDH accused Elon Musk, owner of X Corp, of attempting to stifle anyone who voiced their disapproval of him.
Mr Musk has declared himself to be an advocate for unrestricted free speech.
Citizens Commission on Digital Hate (CCDH) is a charitable body that investigates and disputes online hate. Its research findings are frequently shared in the media, including being publicly mentioned by the BBC, and the UK Conservative parliamentarian, Damian Collins, is a serving board member.
In a statement, Imran Ahmed, CEO of CCDH, commented that Elon Musk's newest legal action is directly taken from an autocratic approach - highlighting that he will not spare any efforts to keep from being held accountable for his critics.
Mr Ahmed asserted that evidence from CCDH had demonstrated hate and misinformation were "propagating rapidly on the platform after it was taken over by Musk".
He accused the X Corp boss of trying to "silence the messenger".
On Monday, news spread about the Tlegal lawsuit that had been filed shortly after a heated exchange of legal correspondence transpired. Alex Spiro, the lawyer for X Corp, had initially sent out a threat through a legal letter, to which Roberta Kaplan, the US attorney for CCDH, responded in a decisive manner.
Mr Spiro's letter concentrated on potential inaccuracies in a CCDH study, which the organisation denied, but a different law firm issued a case in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Monday that incorporated many different assertions.
X Corp is seeking unspecified damages from the not-for-profit organisation, claiming that the centre's critical reports have resulted in it losing out on at least tens of millions of dollars in advertising revenues.
It also proposes to modify the lawsuit to name the backers of CCDH - who are supposedly linked to "foreign governments and established media companies" - when their identities are discovered.
CCDH has generated a variety of investigations which have been known to criticize Twitter. For example, a report, which Mr Spiro strongly contested in his legal letter, declared that Twitter fails to act on almost all of the hateful messages from accounts with Twitter Blue subscriptions.
The complaint condemns the research conducted by CCDH and the techniques it used. It claims that the organisation "knowingly and unlawfully" retrieved data from X without adhering to its terms of service, in order to generate its research.
It is alleged that the CCDH attained "unapproved" access to X's information by means of a software tool named Brandwatch which assists customers in tracking discussions about brands on social media.
A lawsuit claims that an unnamed party provided the CCDH with their Brandwatch login credentials, thus leading to an illegal entry to their data.
The BBC has requested a statement from Brandwatch.
It is alleged that the CCDH's aim was to stifle different views that it did not align with, concerning issues like Covid-19 vaccines, reproductive healthcare, and climate change.
The CCDH reports spurred "several companies that were advertizing on X on an ongoing basis to promptly cease spending for ads on X", according to the case.
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