Trial for legal battle between Elon Musk and Media Matters set for April.
The US District Court for the Northern District of Texas has scheduled a court battle between Media Matters and X, concerning the non-profit's findings on antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on a popular social media platform.
In November, X filed a lawsuit against Media Matters, alleging that the group had misrepresented the likelihood of users encountering hate speech on the platform.
CNN contacted both Media Matters and X soliciting their comments on the recent court order.
Previously, Media Matters President Angelo Carusone characterized X's lawsuit as "frivolous," intended to silence Musk's critics.
The suit maintained that Media Matters' testing methods were not reflective of real users' experiences on the site and that the group's reports exaggerated the odds of someone being exposed to extremist materials.
On December 16th, each side must submit motions for summary judgment. If the judge rules on these motions, an outcome could be achieved before the trial.
Musk faced previous defeats in similar cases. In March, a federal judge in California admonished X and disregarded a lawsuit against another watchdog organization, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, asserting that the lawsuit was more about retaliation than safeguarding the platform's legal rights.
"Not every lawsuit is imbued with pure motives," Judge Charles Breyer, of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, initiated his 52-page ruling. "Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation. Other times, a complaint is so unashamedly and vehemently about one thing that there can be no misinterpretation about the purpose."
"This case embodies the latter scenario. This case is about penalizing the defendants for their speech," Breyer concluded.
