• by Wendy Davis , September 3, 2025

A federal appellate court should leave in place an injunction that prohibits the Federal Trade Commission from investigating Media Matters and its possible role in what the agency describes "potentially unlawful advertiser boycotts," the liberal watchdog argues in papers filed Tuesday.

That injunction was issued last month by U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C., who said Media Matters is likely to prove that the FTC's demand for information was issued with "retaliatory animus" and therefore violates the First Amendment.

Last week, the FTC asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift that order on an emergency basis, arguing that the injunction is causing "immediate and irreparable harm to the FTC’s ad boycott investigation."

Media Matters counters in its new papers that the FTC failed to show an immediate need to pursue its civil investigative demand (comparable to a subpoena) while the appeal proceeds.

"At some point, the word 'emergency' must mean something, and there just isn’t the kind of emergency that warrants extraordinary relief for the government," the group writes.

Media Matters said that the FTC's demand for information had a "severe" impact on the group.

"Media Matters has been forced to modify operations, and organizations refuse to partner with Media Matters, fearing it will disclose sensitive information to the government," the watchdog writes.

The new argument comes in a battle that began in June, when Media Matters sued to block the FTC from pursuing a demand for a trove of information -- including material regarding its finances and newsgathering, and documents relating to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, World Federation of Advertisers and its now defunct Global Alliance for Responsible Media, Check My Ads, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Double Verify and NewsGuard, among other groups.

Media Matters alleged in its complaint that the FTC undertook the probe in retaliation for a November 2023 report that ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle and other brands were being placed next to pro-Nazi posts on X, formerly Twitter.

After Media Matters published that study, the group was sued by X and served with subpoenas by two state attorneys general -- Ken Paxton of Texas and Andrew Bailey of Missouri.

Media Matters is fighting X's lawsuit, and also sued to halt the attorneys general investigations.

A federal judge in Washington blocked Paxton's investigation, ruling that Media Matters was likely to show that Paxton was retaliating against the group for newsgathering activity that's protected by the First Amendment. That ruling was upheld by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bailey abandoned his probe before a judge issued a ruling.

The FTC argued to Sooknanan that the lawsuit was premature because the agency hadn't gone to court to enforce its demand for information.

Sooknanan rejected that position, writing: "Nothing in the FTC Act suggests that Congress meant to declare open season on journalists by allowing a retaliatory FTC to decide if and when its retaliation will be reviewed by a federal court."

The agency also said it didn't specifically target Media Matters, contending that the group was just one of many organizations to receive demands for information regarding "potentially unlawful advertising boycotts."

Last week, the agency reiterated those arguments in its request for an emergency order lifting the injunction.

The agency wrote that the demand sent to Media Matters "is part of a broader investigation into an area of significant concern for the FTC: advertiser boycotts."

The watchdog counters in its new papers that the FTC has yet to explain why it has reason to believe that Media Matters has information relating to advertisers' decisions.

The group adds that the information demanded by the FTC "bears no relationship to the FTC’s limited goal of uncovering information about an agreement between advertisers."

"Even assuming advertisers did coordinate amongst themselves (and there is no public evidence of that), Media Matters simply engaged in constitutionally protected activity -- chronicling abhorrent content on X and calling on companies to withdraw their business," the group writes.

The organization also made a broader challenge to the FTC's claim that it's investigating ad boycotts.

"The FTC’s justification that it seeks to investigate advertisers is also deeply concerning," Media Matters writes. "Under landmark Supreme Court precedent, the First Amendment protects the right to engage in politically motivated boycotts as a means of encouraging social change -- including to discourage social media sites from tolerating extremist content on their platforms. ... The FTC has offered no meaningful explanation for why its investigation into advertisers is not just an effort to penalize First Amendment activity."

The FTC is expected to file a new round of papers by Thursday.