I agree with your point in general, but I have a hard time applying it here. Unless the lawsuit alleges that MM hacked into Twitter or doctored the screenshots, then the core claim of the MM report “Twitter served ad Y next to post Z” is not under dispute. If the claim is that refreshing a page is malicious, then I don’t think we need to wait to call the lawsuit malicious.
Okay, that’s a fair point. They left too many blanks for the reader to fill in, and some will assume the problem is more widespread than it is.
When I put my Social Scientist hat on, I don’t think the methodology was totally unreasonable or obviously malicious, so X would have to strengthen their claims to convince me to wait for court. But you’re right, MM should have done better.