ANALYSIS: Under the Bluster, X’s Data-Scraping Suit Follows Form

X Corp.’s recent federal lawsuit against a hate speech research organization caught the attention of many observers who see it as a blatant attempt to silence a vocal critic of its management of online hate speech and misinformation. But underneath the lawsuit’s novel allegations charging the researcher with misrepresenting data, the claims that carry the most legal weight reflect a familiar continuation of X’s and other social media companies’ increasing gatekeeping efforts to deny access to user-provided content from data-scraping bots.

Data Scraping Draws More Scrutiny

Data scraping, the use of automated software to collect content or other data from ...