Singapore court says X subsidiary’s case over ads next to Nazi content belongs in the US

X Asia Pacific argued that Media Matters’ employees had set up and utilised a separate account which exclusively followed a subset of X platform users falling into two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content and the X Group’s major advertising clients.

This alternate account only followed 30 X users, compared to the average of 219 X accounts followed by a typical active X user, “to ensure that only a limited type of content would be featured” in its feed.

According to the X subsidiary, Media Matters also “repeatedly scrolled and refreshed the selected feed on the alternate account to generate 13 to 15 times more advertisements per hour than those viewed by an average X platform user”.

Media Matters did not dispute these assertions before the judge, who found that X Asia Pacific made a good arguable case that the offending statements in Media Matters’ article were false and maliciously made in a calculated attempt to cause loss to the X Group.

Justice Low found that there was a good arguable case of damages suffered in Singapore in the form of a loss of advertising revenue as a result of the article.

Though X Asia Pacific was not named specifically in the article, she also found that the article could have referred to the Singapore subsidiary of X Corp, which was named.

However, Justice Low found that the X subsidiary failed to make a good arguable case that the article was published in Singapore.

X Asia Pacific claimed that at least 183 users based in Singapore had clicked on the webpage containing the article from the X platform to access the article 54 times. 

It also claimed that at least 7,455 users based in Singapore had interacted with an X post containing a hyperlink to the article.

No supporting evidence was used to support these assertions, and the company did not provide further details explaining how they were derived.

The judge ultimately agreed with Media Matters that X Asia Pacific fell short of establishing a good, arguable case of the article being published in Singapore.

CASE BEST HEARD IN TEXAS: JUDGE

Despite her findings that X Asia Pacific had arguable claims of defamation and malicious falsehood against Media Matters, Judicial Commissioner Low ruled that the appropriate forum to try X Asia Pacific’s claims is in the US.

Justice Low found that X Asia Pacific’s claims arose from “statements that were researched, written and uploaded for publication in the US, concerning the workings of a social media platform that was operated from the US”.

“The vast majority of the relevant witnesses and documentary evidence will be located in the US” as well, she added.

Additionally, she substantial overlap in issues between the Singapore and Texas proceedings.

The actions in both suits were filed by X Group entities against the same defendant, arising from the same types of losses flowing from the publication of the same article.

“The potential duplication of resources and risk of conflicting judgments is therefore significant,” she said.

Justice Low’s final ruling was that “the Texas Court is clearly and distinctly the more appropriate forum” to resolve X Asia Pacific’s claims and dismissed the appeal.