I see everyone calling Elon Musk an anti-Semite because he threatened to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Musk claimed the ADL tried to end X/Twitter by accusing him of being anti-Semitic along with the platform, thus bringing down revenue from advertisers.
It seems the ADL has gone downhill since Jonathan Greenblatt took over eight years ago: Anti-Defamation League Blasted for Becoming Just Another Tool for the Left
Last November, Liel Leibovitz explained in Tablet Magazine why it’s time to eliminate the ADL. He brought up Kyrie Irving and Greenblatt living up to a horrific Jewish stereotype:
Kyrie Irving, a kooky basketball player who believes that the Earth is flat, that JFK was shot by bankers, that the COVID vaccines were secretly a plot to connect all Black people to a supercomputer, and that Jews worship Satan and launched the slave trade?Or Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, who accepted $500,000 from Irving last week without even meeting or even talking to the all-star—and who was then forced to give back the donation when Irving blatantly refused to apologize?Let’s think about it for a minute. One of these guys is a weirdo with dumb opinions he may or may not actually believe. The other is running a soulless racket which just made it clear that you can say whatever you want about the Jews and buy your indulgences at a discount price.
The last paragraph made those disgusting Nazi posters used to turn people against the Jewish population pop into my head. So gross.
It doesn’t take away from the fact that Leibovitz is correct in his post.
Let’s go back to Musk and free speech. It bothered me to see Christian Britschgi at Reason write that Musk taking action against the ADL isn’t something a free-speech absolutist would do.
You can still be a free speech absolutist and file defamation lawsuits. Defamation, which could be libel (written statements) or slander (spoken statements), is not allowed.
However, it is hard to win a defamation lawsuit. Think about it: if it were easy, then people and companies would sue everyone. It reminds me of the South Park episode “Sexual Harassment Panda.” Everybody sues everybody for sexual harassment! Everyone gets mad at “Petey the Sexual Harassment Panda!” At the end of the episode, Petey comes back from the Island of Misfit Mascots as “Petey the Don’t Sue People Panda.”
Anyway, the burden of proof lies solely on the plaintiff. I’m guessing Musk would sue ADL on behalf of X/Twitter, making it a business defamation claim.
The burden of proof lies solely on X/Twitter. The company must prove all of these points:
The statement must contain facts, be about the plaintiff, and have to be 100% false.
The publication point means the alleged defamation must have happened in the “public in some form, whether the defendant told it to another person, posted it online, or had it published in the local newspaper.”
“Actual malice” will likely come into play under fault. X/Twitter would have to “prove that the defendant either knew that a statement was false or acted recklessly about it.” In other words, INTENT.
The “lack of privilege” is not about the privilege the leftists always scream about. The ADL can claim privilege if its alleged statements are true and cannot be defamatory. X/Twitter has to prove no such privilege exists.
Finally, X/Twitter must show that the ADL’s alleged defamation statements caused the company to lose money. The first four points are pretty easy to prove but the last one? Not easy at all.
Seeing the data dump Musk mentioned in his tweet about the lost revenue will be interesting.
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