CNN –
Ben Brody says his life has been going well. He had just graduated college, stayed out of trouble and was preparing for law school. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Elon Musk used his considerable social media influence to amplify the misguided rants of an online mafia that accused the 22-year-old from California of being an undercover cop in a neo-Nazi group.
The claim, Brody told CNN, is as bizarre as it is unfounded.
But the fact that he bore a vague resemblance to a person said to be part of the group, that he was Jewish, and that he once stated in a fraternity profile posted online that he wanted to work for the government one day was more as enough information for internet trolls to incorrectly conclude that Brody was a covert government agent (a “Fed”) who was infiltrated into the neo-Nazi group to make them look bad.
For Brody, the consequences were immediate. Overnight, he became a central figure in a story told by people seeking to deny and downplay the actions of hate groups in the United States today.
The lies and taunts Musk engaged in on social media turned his life upside down, Brody said. At one point, he said, he and his mother had to leave their home for fear of an attack.
Now he is defending himself.
Brody filed a defamation lawsuit last month against Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter. The lawsuit seeks more than $1 million in damages. Brody says he wants the billionaire to apologize and retract the false claims about him.
Brody’s lawyer – the same lawyer who successfully sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over his lies about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre – said he hopes the lawsuit will force one of the richest and most powerful men in the world to come to terms with his negligence and harmful online behavior to be expected.
“This case goes to the heart of something that I think is really wrong in this country,” attorney Mark Bankston said in an interview with CNN. “How powerful people, very influential people, are way too reckless with the things they say about private citizens, people who are just trying to run their lives, who have done nothing to get that attention.”
A lawyer for Musk was asked for comment on the lawsuit and told CNN: “We expect this case to be dismissed.” Musk’s lawyers have until January 5, 2024 to file their response in court.
On the night of Saturday, June 24, 2023, Ben Brody was in Riverside, California.
About 1,000 miles away, a gay pride event was taking place near Portland, Oregon. In recent years, the city has become the focus of often violent clashes related to the country’s ongoing culture wars.
It was no surprise then that the event became a target for rival far-right groups and neo-Nazis, who began fighting among themselves during their protests. Video of the skirmish, in which the far-right protesters pushed and pulled each other, quickly spread on social media.
Online conspiracy theorists soon joined the fray.
Instead of accepting the fact that two far-right groups with previous violence were responsible for the clash, online trolls insisted that it was a so-called “false flag” event – a set-up that Neo – Nazis look bad.
That’s where they found Ben Brody.
The day after the Pride event, Brody received text messages from his friends asking him to check social media.
“You’re being accused of being a neo-Nazi,” he recalled some of his friends telling him.
Somehow someone had found a photo of Brody online on social media and concluded that he looked like one of the people involved in the collision.
Anonymous people on the Internet, self-proclaimed Internet sleuths, began investigating and discovered that Brody was Jewish and had studied political science at the University of California, Riverside. He once stated on his student association’s website that he wanted to work for the government.
“I said I wanted to work for the government. And that was only because I didn’t know exactly which part of the government I wanted to work for. You know, I thought I could be a lawyer,” Brody recalled in an interview with CNN.
It was important to her that he was Jewish because conspiracy theories are often steeped in anti-Semitism – suggesting that there is a Jewish plan to control the world.
Brody’s social media inboxes filled with messages like “Fed,” “Nazi” and “We got you.” He and his mother were forced to leave their family home after their address was published online, he said .
Some of Brody’s friends began posting online, attempting to correct the record and explain that it was a case of mistaken identity. Brody himself posted a video on Instagram in which he desperately tried to prove his innocence. He even went so far as to obtain time-stamped video surveillance footage that showed him at a restaurant in Riverside, California, at the time of the Oregon brawl as evidence that he could not have attended the rally.
But without success. The conspiracy theory continued to spread on the Internet, including on X. But it wasn’t just anonymous trolls who fueled the lie. Musk, the platform’s owner, joined in and amplified the lie to his millions of followers.
Video from the Oregon event showed the masks of at least one protester being removed during the fight between the opposing far-right groups. Musk asked on X on June 25, “Who were the people exposed?”
Another X user linked to a tweet claiming Brody was one of the people exposed. The tweet highlighted a line from Brody’s fraternity profile that said he wanted to work for the government after graduating.
The tweet claimed that the exposed alleged member of the far-right group was Brody, noting that he was a “political science student at a liberal school on the path to a government career.”
“Very strange,” Musk replied.
Another user shared the tweet alleging Brody’s involvement and commented, “Remember when they called us conspiracy theorists because we said the government was using fake Nazis at rallies?”
“Always take off their masks,” Musk replied.
On June 27, after several days of engaging in conspiracy theories on the subject, Musk claimed that the Oregon skirmish was a false flag. “Looks like one is a student (looking to join the government) and another may be an Antifa member, but it’s still probably a false flag situation,” he tweeted.
“I knew it was a snowball effect, but when Elon Musk commented on it, I thought, ‘Boom, that’s the final nail in the coffin,'” Brody recalls.
According to Internet Archive records, Musk has more followers than anyone else on X – about 150 million at the end of June, around the time he tweeted about the fight in Oregon. According to X, this tweet has been viewed more than 1.2 million times.
Brody feared his name would forever be associated with neo-Nazism and he wouldn’t get a job. Although he had graduated from college, he did not yet have a degree, and he said some of the accounts that sent him messages threatened to contact his university. “My life is ruined,” he thought.
To clear his name, he gave an interview to Vice.com that caught the attention of Mark Bankston.
Bankston is best known as a lawyer who successfully represented conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in court and advocated for parents who lost their children in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.
Bankston said Brody’s case is not only an opportunity to clear the young man’s name, but could also lead to what he believes is a necessary discussion about the vitriolic nature of online discourse.
The lawsuit, filed last month in Travis County, Texas (the same county where Bankston successfully sued Jones), alleges that Musk’s claims about Brody are part of a “serial series of defamation” by the billionaire.
Musk, the lawsuit says, is “perhaps the most influential of all influencers, and his support of the allegations against Ben has motivated other social media influencers and users to continue their attacks and harassment and to publish allegations against Ben that will last forever.” will stay online.” .”
Shortly after taking over Twitter in 2022, Musk said the platform needed to become “by far the most accurate source of information about the world.”
But on the contrary, the lawsuit states: “Musk has personally used the platform to regularly spread false statements while reinforcing and amplifying the most reprehensible elements of conspiracy-driven Twitter.”
The lawsuit details how Musk handled accounts that spread racism and anti-Semitism, and details instances in which he publicly shared or engaged in conspiracy theories – including last October, when he made false claims about the attack to Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy, Pelosi said.
The lawsuit alleges that Musk refused to delete his tweets in August after Musk was made aware of Brody’s defamation lawsuit through his lawyers.
Bankston and his client said the lawsuit is about much more than just money.
“I just want to do everything right,” Brody told CNN. “It’s not about revenge. I am not annoyed. It’s not a grudge. I just want to make everything right, get an apology so that this doesn’t happen to anyone else again.”