It started with childish name-calling on Twitter two weeks ago, when Elon Musk called my organisation "evil" and me personally a "rat". It has since escalated to a lawsuit filed against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which I founded and run, in a California court last week.

The CCDH exists to research online hate and disinformation, and hold social media companies accountable for the erosion of human rights and civil liberties. Our mission is to stem the tide of racism, antisemitism, harms to children, climate denial, anti-LGBTQ+ hate, health misinformation and many other dangers to society.

Last week, we became the target of an aggressive and cynical intimidation campaign by Musk, the world's richest person and owner of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Musk is singling us out because our research has exposed his failings – the suit is designed to silence critics of X Corp/Twitter. But attacking CCDH will not remove the neo-Nazis, white supremacists and disinformation superspreaders he has allowed back. Only Musk can undo his own errors.

The CCDH has been at the forefront of reporting on the hate proliferating on X/Twitter since Musk completed his takeover in late October 2022.

Our reporting has shown that, under his watch, the number of tweets containing slurs has risen by up to 202%; that tweets linking LGBTQ+ people to "child grooming" have more than doubled; demonstrated that climate denial content and accounts are surging; and revealed Twitter's failure to act on hate posted by Twitter Blue subscribers. Members of Twitter's own trust and safety council have resigned, citing CCDH findings, and our research has been widely reported by news outlets around the world.

CCDH holds up a mirror to social media platforms and asks them to consider whether or not they like the reflection they see in it. We are proud of our record of investigating and raising the alarm whenever and wherever we discover the proliferation of serious harms on Twitter/X, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google, YouTube and other platforms.