X’s complaint alleged that Media Matters “manipulated” the platform’s algorithm to generate inorganic ad placements to form a “blatant smear campaign,” but the complaint seemingly admitted that no statements that Media Matters published were false. Media Matters will likely argue that advertisers could interpret its reporting however they felt would be best for their business.

X Corp. is hoping to convince the court that Media Matters intended to portray rare occurrences of ads being placed next to antisemitic content as a problem occurring frequently, but Media Matters’ report does not make such a claim. Instead, Media Matters’ report only noted that X “has been placing ads for major brands” next to “content that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party.” The report called out X CEO Linda Yaccarino for claiming that “brands are now ‘protected from the risk of being next to’ potentially toxic content" and simply said “that certainly isn’t the case for at least five major brands.”