Missouri AG Files Petition to Force Media Matters to Comply With Civil Investigative Demand
“My office has reason to believe Media Matters used fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to bully advertisers into pulling out of X, the last social media platform dedicated to free speech in America…”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed suit against Media Matters to force the far-left organization to cooperate with an investigation.
Bailey began an investigation into Media Matters’ “allegedly fraudulent solicitation of donations from Missourians amidst its efforts to target X, formerly known as Twitter.”
“My office has reason to believe Media Matters used fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to bully advertisers into pulling out of X, the last social media platform dedicated to free speech in America, so we launched an investigation to get to the bottom of it,” stated Attorney General Bailey. “However, Media Matters has a sordid history of refusing to cooperate with investigations. I’m not going to let this activist group stonewall us. If there has been any attempt to defraud Missourians in order to trample on their free speech rights, I will root it out and hold bad actors accountable.”
Bailey accused Media Matters of violating the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act.
“The Attorney General has reason to believe that the Subject has used deception, fraud, false promise, misrepresentation, unfair practice or the concealment, suppression, or omission of material fact in connection with the soliciting of funds for a charitable purpose or the sale or advertisement of merchandise in or from the State of Missouri, § 407.020, RSMo,” Bailey wrote in the petition. “Independently, the Attorney General also believes it to be in the public interest to investigate whether such acts have occurred.”
It all stems from a Media Matters report claiming that Twitter “would place ads next to ‘pro-Nazi’ content.” Elon Musk sued Media Matters for allegedly “falsely and deceptively manipulated the algorithm on X.”
Bailey wants Media Matters to turn over anything “identifying any and all donations of funds from donors” in Missouri from January 1, 2023, to March 25, 2024.
Other demands include:
2. All promotional or marketing information provided by you from January 1, 2023 to March 25, 2024 to any individual or organization for the purpose of soliciting donations.
3. All documents or communications showing how solicited donations were used.
4. All communications or materials relating to any policy, strategy or operation related to generating stories or content intended to cancel, deplatform, demonetize, or otherwise interfere with businesses located in Missouri, or utilized by Missouri residents.
5. All communications, internal and external, regarding your strategy to pressure advertisers into pulling advertisements from the social media platform, X (formerly Twitter).
6. Documents sufficient to identify your employee organizational chart.
7. Documents sufficient to identify all your operational expenses in the state of Missouri.
8. All documents discussing Elon Musk’s purchase of X (formerly Twitter).
9. All documents related to the article, or to the events described in the article, by Eric Hananoki entitled “As Musk endorses antisemitic conspiracy theory, X has been placing ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM,Oracle, and Xfinity next to pro-Nazi content.”
10. All documents sufficient to identify X accounts owned, controlled, or authorized by you used to obtain the images in the article referenced in paragraph 9.
11. All documents sufficient to identify all X accounts followed by the X accounts identified in response to paragraph 10.
12. All communications with Apple, International Business Machine Corporation, Bravo Television Network, NBCUniversal, Oracle Corporation, Comcast Corporation, Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, Warner Bros Discovery Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation, or Sony Group Corporation from November 1, 2023, to March 25, 2024.
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Comments
It sounds like lawfare to me, driven by reelection chances.
Poor poor poor media matters can’t lie to people to solicit donations for the purpose of bullying advertisers into a boycott of anything not hard left…….
We could all have status quo by voting Joe Biden, if you want things to change you have to use the levers of power. If you are unwilling to see the levers of power used you might as well be voting Biden. Either corporate America will see there are consequences for not being the enforcers of the Democratic Party while it is highly unlikely to have any rewards for neutrality (let alone Republican party loyalty)…….gee I wonder if they will continue the purge of conservatives from American life.
Sorry this is a hard concept for you.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Someone is learning how to fight back, it looks like.
There is not a more cosseted arrogant bunch of commie libs than MM. Not even the SPLC.
Hope to see a lot more of this, the scale is far out of balance.
It’s about time someone held this scumbag organization accountable. Might want to look at their 501c3 violations too. File a Que Tam lawsuit with the IRS against them. Share in the recovery of any monies because of their violation of 501c3 rules. FJB
Exactly
Fraud? A $500M judgment sounds just about right.
It’s a good start. The way to finish is to drag MM into court in front of a judge without a jury and have the judge declare without evidence they committed fraud and now are civilly liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. And they must liquidate all their assets before they can file an appeal.
But that’s unconstitutional and has no place in the United States of America, Media Matters would scream.
This investigation far exceeds GOP fair-play guidelines.
The Marquess of Queensberry sniffs and exits the chat.
Its’ a little skeezy, but they made the rules; the AG is only playing by them. In any case, Media Matters is morally estopped from complaining about skeezy tactics.
Media Matters is such a fraud. Musk should fight them with everything he’s got.