Morgan Stanley has been asking X to remove posts that displayed screenshots from its research, and at least one user was temporarily locked as a result. Bloomberg received the complaint materials via Ryan Detrick, who serves as Carson Group Holdings LLC's chief market strategist, and his account was locked Wednesday night.
According to Detrick, the referenced post featured a chart sourced from a report by Mike Wilson; Wilson serves as Morgan Stanley's chief US equity strategist as well as its chief investment officer.
Detrick - who counts 222,400 followers on X - said the post had been up since April and credited both Wilson and Morgan Stanley. He added, "If they had just reached out, I would've taken it down."
The notice Detrick received from X included Morgan Stanley's original takedown language stating the "copyrighted work is, in full or part (reports, graphs & charts), a proprietary Morgan Stanley Research Report." The message also linked to 16 other posts from various users; most of those have since been deleted or edited to strip out Morgan Stanley content. Another user flagged by the bank told Detrick on X that they were running into the same problem.
When he opened the app Wednesday and saw the lock, Detrick initially thought his account had been hacked. He then attempted to sign in on his laptop, got the same lock notice pointing to X's copyright policy, and restored access after reviewing it, a process he said took about five minutes. His post that evening about the complaint has drawn over 90,000 views.
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Later, X Legal Support emailed Detrick to say the April chart was taken down under a DMCA notice and to explain that he could request a retraction from the filer. The message named the complainant as Denise McCool, whose LinkedIn lists her as Morgan Stanley's research organization's global chief for data, AI, and risk, and it included the contact [email protected]. Detrick said he reached out but has not gotten a response.
A Morgan Stanley spokesperson declined to comment. A request for comment to X - which sits under SpaceX - did not receive an immediate reply.
Finance Twitter thrives on sharing charts and snippets of research, sparking fast back-and-forth on market moves. Detrick said Morgan Stanley's approach shows the firm doesn't get that this is "just how the industry works," quipping, "I thought all publicity was good publicity."
He also worries repeated notices could jeopardize his account. X's policy is clear on that point: "If multiple copyright complaints are received about an account, or other evidence suggests a pattern of repeat infringement, X may suspend that account in accordance with our Repeat Infringer Policy." Translation for anyone who posts market charts and excerpts: copyright enforcement is active, and who files the notice matters for what stays up and what quietly disappears.
