RSF is suing the American billionaire's company “for defamation, dissemination of false news, damage to the representation of the person, identity theft and complicity in the commission of these last two offenses”, according to a press release published Wednesday evening.
At the origin of the conflict, a video discovered at the end of August, “fraudulently branded BBC” and presenting RSF – via its logo, its graphic charter and the image of one of its leaders – “as the author of an alleged study on the Nazi inclinations of Ukrainian soldiers.
In mid-September, the NGO “revealed how the Russian state”, at war against Ukraine, “had laundered this false information”, relayed mainly on X and Telegram and counting at the time “nearly half -million views,” she recalls.
Relying on the mechanism put in place by “None of our requests resulted in the removal of content defaming our organization,” says the NGO, which nevertheless benefits from a “premium account” (paid) on X.
Media leaks
In parallel with its complaint in France, RSF also “provided” its testimony and other elements to the European Commission, which opened a “formal investigation” against the X network for alleged failures in terms of content moderation and transparency in December 2023.
On Thursday, the Spanish daily La Vanguardia, based in Barcelona, announced that it would no longer publish content on this “disinformation network”, the day after a similar announcement from the British daily The Guardian.
Elon Musk, promoter of a radical vision of freedom of expression, rejecting all forms of censorship, bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022. A fervent supporter of Donald Trump, he has just been appointed by the American president-elect at the head of a commission responsible for cutting public spending.
