gizmodo – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Lots Of Big Media Companies Had Access To The Facebook Files; Only Gizmodo Decided To Put In The Work To Make Them Public

from the good-for-them dept

Over the last month or so, you’ve probably heard a lot about the Facebook Files or the Facebook Papers, which are the documents shared by former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen with the media, starting with the Wall Street Journal, and then a rather reluctant “consortium” of seventeen big name US-based news organizations. The reluctance was apparent in the name of the Slack group created for all of the reporters working on the project: “Apparently We’re A Consortium Now.”

While I’ve been skeptical of some of the framing of the reporting on the papers, I still do generally believe it was a good thing to get this research out to the world — even if I have little confidence that the media could ever do a good job conveying the story.

As news of the consortium broke, many people called out the fact that all of these big journalism organizations weren’t actually releasing the documents they were going through themselves, often only describing them or quoting parts of them. Given that in a few cases where we’ve been able to see the full documents, it has appeared that some of the reporting was misleading or confused, this was a concern. And, of course, there were other concerns about the makeup of the consortium, and the fact that it was entirely based in the US.

That doesn’t mean that it made sense to freely release all the documents to the public. There are plenty of reasonable concerns about privacy when you have a giant cache of internal documents. That’s why it’s a good thing to find out that Gizmodo has now taken on the task of making the Facebook Papers public, and doing so in partnership with a bunch of independent experts who will help Gizmodo’s reporters sift through the documents and make sure that they’re okay to be released:

Today, we see a strong public need can be served by making as many of the documents public as possible, as quickly as possible. To that end, we?ve partnered with a small group of independent monitors who are joining us to guide our work in preparing the papers for public release. The mission is to minimize any costs to individuals? privacy or the furtherance of other harms while ensuring the responsible disclosure of the greatest amount of information in the public interest.

As Gizmodo notes, there are many reasons to carefully review the documents before releasing them:

More than for privacy, the documents require extra review to ensure we aren?t just handing groups of criminals and spies a roadmap to undermining the controls Facebook does have in place to detect propaganda aimed at spreading lies, hate, and fear. That would undermine any benefit the world stands to reap from this act of whistleblower justice.

The work is just beginning but we?re eager to start releasing documents as as possible. The first batch will likely consist of documents that warrant the least amount of redactions, just to get the ball rolling.

This is all good news. But it’s a bit crazy that it’s Gizmodo doing all this work. Gizmodo wasn’t even a member of the original consortium and only joined after the first batch of stories went out. Also, Gizmodo is way smaller and with way fewer resources than many of the other members of the consortium, which includes the flush NY Times, the Washington Post, NBC, CNN, the Associated Press, Politico, Wired and more.

The fact that it took a month for any of the members, let alone one of the smaller ones, to actually decide to put together the effort to release the papers is a damning statement on how many members of the consortium see their role in the media to be a gatekeeper to information, rather than providing the public access to information.

Filed Under: facebook files, facebook papers, reporting, transparency
Companies: facebook, gizmodo

Former Trump Spokesman Ordered To Pay $42,000 To Gizmodo After Losing His Bogus Defamation Lawsuit

from the windmill-jousting-a-surprisingly-expensive-sport dept

A former Trump spokesman has reached the end of his always-doomed attempt to sue an online publication for reporting on the content of court documents. And it’s going to cost him about $42,000 in legal fees.

Jason Miller was understandably disturbed when the now-defunct Splinter (owned by Gizmodo) wrote about allegations made by another Trump campaign staffer, A.J. Delgado. These allegations were made public during unrelated court proceedings. And they’re pretty disturbing.

On Friday, September 14, 2018, Ms. Delgado filed a supplement to an earlier motion for the court to consider a psychological evaluation of Mr. Miller. Essentially, the supplement stated that Ms. Delgado was informed in the summer of 2018 that Mr. Miller (while married) had an affair in 2012 with a stripper in Florida referred to as Jane Doe; that Mr. Miller had sexual intercourse with Ms. Doe; that Ms. Doe became pregnant; that Mr. Miller visited Ms. Doe and gave her a beverage which, unbeknownst to her, contained an abortion pill; that Ms. Doe wound up in a hospital emergency room, bleeding heavily, and almost went into a coma; that the pill induced an abortion; and that Ms. Doe’s unborn child died. The supplement identified Ms. Delgado’s initial source for this information and stated that Ms. Doe had later confirmed the story to a journalist.

Splinter reported on these allegations, linking to the filed document. The supplement was later sealed, but that move couldn’t undo the reporting. Neither could Miller’s litigation.

He was first rejected at the district level. The court cited New York state law (where Splinter was located) as protecting journalists from being sued for reporting on allegations made in court filings. Furthermore, it pointed to Splinter’s posting of the filing itself as being instrumental to its fair reporting defense. ALWAYS POST DOCUMENTS, folks.

Miller’s appeal went no better. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court’s filings, both in terms of the First Amendment and New York state law. Anyone reading the filing posted by Splinter was free to draw their own conclusions from the sworn statements. A post-publication sealing by the court doesn’t suddenly make the contents of the documents privileged or any legitimate basis for a defamation lawsuit.

With the appeal going in favor of Splinter, the case has returned to the Florida court. And the lower court says [PDF] Miller is on the hook for legal fees.

Judgment in the amount of $41,868.23, reflecting costs incurred by Defendants at both the district court and appellate court levels, is entered against Plaintiff in accordance with the terms of the Stipulation.

That expense will be in addition to whatever Miller paid to engage in the fruitless litigation. If it’s said in court and made publicly available by the clerk — even temporarily — it’s fair game for reporting.

Filed Under: anti-slapp, attorney's fees, defamation, fair reporting privilege, jason miller, reporting, slapp
Companies: gizmodo, splinter

Appeals Court Says Former Trump Advisor Can't Sue Over Reporting Based On Court Documents

from the sworn-statements-considered-truthful-until-otherwise-indicated dept

You can be angry about things said about you in court filings. But you really can’t sue about them. Reporting based on court documents is almost (!) always protected by the First Amendment. After all, those making the statements in court are swearing what they’re saying is true. Those reporting on sworn statements have no reason to believe otherwise, even if it’s eventually revealed the assertions were false.

That’s the tough lesson being learned by Jason Miller, a former Trump advisor who sued Gizmodo for reporting on court filings stating he had spiked a smoothie with an abortion pill to head off an inconvenient pregnancy. Miller has always claimed this accusation is false. Splinter — a now-defunct website owned by Gizmodo — reported on allegations made by another Trump staffer, A.J. Delgado, back in 2018.

Since then, Miller has been trying to sue Gizmodo for defamation. But there’s no defamation here, as the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirms in its decision [PDF]. The lawsuit was filed in New York, which activates local civil rights laws which grant a “fair and true report” privilege to journalists who report on court filings. That proves instrumental in this dismissal, even though the First Amendment would have covered it as well.

The allegations Miller sued over are incredibly disturbing.

On Friday, September 14, 2018, Ms. Delgado filed a supplement to an earlier motion for the court to consider a psychological evaluation of Mr. Miller. Essentially, the supplement stated that Ms. Delgado was informed in the summer of 2018 that Mr. Miller (while married) had an affair in 2012 with a stripper in Florida referred to as Jane Doe; that Mr. Miller had sexual intercourse with Ms. Doe; that Ms. Doe became pregnant; that Mr. Miller visited Ms. Doe and gave her a beverage which, unbeknownst to her, contained an abortion pill; that Ms. Doe wound up in a hospital emergency room, bleeding heavily, and almost went into a coma; that the pill induced an abortion; and that Ms. Doe’s unborn child died. The supplement identified Ms. Delgado’s initial source for this information and stated that Ms. Doe had later confirmed the story to a journalist.

Miller tried to have this sealed, claiming it would (obviously) harm his reputation and adversely affect paternity proceedings he was currently involved in. Before any action could be taken, Splinter posted an article by Katherine Krueger that ran under this title:

Court Docs Allege Ex-Trump Staffer Drugged Woman He Got Pregnant with ‘Abortion Pill’

There’s nothing untrue about the headline. That’s exactly what the court documents alleged. The body of the article expanded on the claims made by A.J. Delgado, reporting only about what was contained in the statement.

Nevertheless, Jason Miller sued. That the document was later sealed by the court doesn’t matter. For a brief period of time it could be accessed by anyone. That it was accessed by a site with some reach doesn’t change anything.

Miller and the person supposedly slipped the abortion pill swore in court this incident never happened. Denials abounded. For better or for worse, these statements don’t matter: what was reported on at the time it was reported is protected by New York law, if not the First Amendment. The district court agreed with Gizmodo. So does the Eleventh Circuit. The only hitch is the state’s matrimonial proceedings laws, which can sometimes result in the stripping of this privilege, given the sensitive (and often heated) results of those proceedings.

Ultimately, the rights granted to journalists trump the rights granted to combatants in “matrimonial proceedings.”

[W]e note that Shiles has not been extended to reports of public matrimonial proceedings, even though, like sealed records, they are inherently personal in nature, and the allegations made and voiced in such proceedings can be used to promote public scandal, damage reputations, or coerce a settlement.

That’s the lesson to be learned here. If documents are available — even temporarily — to the public, they can’t be considered the basis for defamation. They’re sworn statements and should be treated as true until a court says otherwise. A regular person could have drawn the same conclusions from the submitted statements and posted their conclusions on their own. Just because the same thing happened on a website with considerable inbound traffic doesn’t change anything. The privilege afforded by the state covers it. And so does the First Amendment, even if the court doesn’t have to reach that conclusion.

Filed Under: defamation, fair and true report, jason miller, journalist privilege, litigation privilege, new york
Companies: gizmodo

Deadspin Is Being Burnt To The Ground By Its New Management As Staff Quits Or Revolts

from the oops dept

If you’re a sports fan and you’re not familiar with Deadspin.com, then, no, you’re not a sports fan. The former Gawker property is certainly one of the most popular sports sites on the web and was a bright spot even when under Gawker Media’s management. The charm of Deadspin has always been its irreverence, its humor, and its willingness to take on stories that fall outside of the realm of sports reporting. The fanbase of the site was built upon this editorial practice.

Gawker fell to Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel, of course, leading the site to be sold to Univision. During that time, Deadspin continued to operate normally. The site, along with other Gizmodo Media properties, was then sold to Great Hill Partners, a private equity firm. Great Hill put in place Paul Maidment as Editorial Director. Alongside Great Hill attempting to clamp down on the Deadspin staff’s use of encrypted communications, leading to a fairly severe backlash from Deadspin, Maidment recently sent an edict to the Deadspin staff demanding that they not do any posts or reporting that fall outside of the world of sports.

The conflict was set off Monday, when Paul Maidment, the editorial director of G/O Media, sent a memo to the staff, telling them to focus their coverage on sports.

“Deadspin will write only about sports and that which is relevant to sports in some way,” he wrote in the memo, which was first reported by The Daily Beast.

Also on Monday, a Deadspin blog post that solicited reader feedback on the site’s features, including autoplay video ads, was removed. The post had previously appeared across the portfolio of sites, including Kotaku and The Root. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller personally directed the company’s CTO to remove the posts, a staffer told CNN Business.

Petschesky claimed in a tweet that in doing so management had violated the company’s collective bargaining agreement with the Gizmodo Media Group union. (Gizmodo Media Group is the previous name of G/O Media.)

That would be Barry Petchesky, editor in chief at Deadspin. It’s important to remember that the staff at G/O Media is a union that collectively bargained their contracts. G/O Media denies the violation of the union agreement, which requires a vote among several executives. Regardless, the message that Deadspin was to “stick to sports” from here on out didn’t, ah, go over all that well.

Instead of heeding management’s mandate, staffers filled Deadspin’s homepage on Tuesday morning with non-sports stories that had been popular in the past, seemingly a nod to their argument that stories that are not strictly about sports have been favorites of Deadspin’s regular readers. Perhaps most telling among the selections was “The Adults In The Room,” an article published by former Deadspin editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell on her last day at the site in which she condemned the actions of Deadspin’s parent company, G/O Media.

The rebellion has not been without consequences. Deadspin interim editor-in-chief Barry Petchesky tweeted Tuesday, “Hi! I’ve just been fired from Deadspin for not sticking to sports.”

Petchesky’s firing kicked off a firestorm of its own, with GMG Union tweeting its condemnation of the firing in a statement. The Writers Guild of America East, which represents GMG Union, issued its own statement in solidarity. And, more importantly, the Deadspin staff continued to revolt.

Deadspin staffers published several new stories to The Concourse on Tuesday. Editor Tom Ley wrote about meeting “three good dogs” in Mexico City and fellow editor Dan McQuade wrote about a pumpkin thief. Writer Kelsey McKinney wrote about “acceptable wedding dress codes.” None of the stories mentioned the word “sports” or had any connection to sports.

The site has been basically dormant since Tuesday. Given that the World Series just concluded, it’s a rather telling and tough time for a well known sports journalism property to instead be headlining “I Would Have Sex With An Entire Major League Baseball Team If Given The Opportunity.” And, worse than the ongoing revolt, large swaths of Deadspin staff of varied levels of fame have announced they are leaving the company as a result of this whole fiasco. The latest exodus came Thursday morning as Drew Magary, the site’s best known writer, announced he had quit as well.

Magary, perhaps the site’s best-known writer, announced his resignation Thursday morning. He joined a list of staffers leaving in recent days. Most elected to quit over a management edict to “stick to sports.” While Deadspin was founded in 2005 as a sports-centric site, it has branched out into several coverage areas, from the arch and waggish to more serious political and social commentary.

With Magary out at Deadspin, the site might as well be dead. And for what? Because a private equity firm and its editorial puppet wanted a site that had built its own success out of not sticking to sports to start sticking to sports? To what end? It’s well known that the “stick to sports” edict generally means “don’t talk anything related to politics.” Even for a sports site, that’s just stupid.

As stupid, in fact, as burning a successful site to the ground for no discernible reason.

Filed Under: deadspin, journalism, private equity, sports
Companies: g/o media, gizmodo, great hill partners

Gizmodo Media's Clueless New Owners Tell Reporters They Can't Use Encrypted Email Any More

from the wait,-but...-whut? dept

G/O Media is the latest incarnation of Gizmodo Media, after it was sold by Univision to private equity firm Great Hill Partners earlier this year. Univision, of course, acquired “Gizmodo Media” out of the remnants of Gawker Media, after that company was forced into bankruptcy by a bogus lawsuit and a bad court ruling. There had been plenty of indications that the reporters and editors at G/O Media were chaffing under their new bosses (despite Great Hill putting media exec Jim Spanfeller in charge) as they very quickly laid off some of their best reporters, including Kashmir Hill.

Last month there were reports that the staff were “enraged at the new CEO’s ‘insane’ direction” and the details of all that flooded out — in classic Gawker fashion — on one of their own sites, Deadspin, which posted a truly incredible piece of journalism entitled This Is How Things Work Now At G/O Media. It’s a really damning report. And it’s long. It talked a lot about how the new bosses brought in a bunch of old friends (all white men) often replacing (or simply ignoring) women who were already in those jobs. It’s full of choice quotes like the following:

The internal reaction to these hires has ranged from confusion to anger. The confusion stems from a lack of communication. For instance, Rogers, who sits in a corner office in New York, still hasn?t been formally announced as a new employee internally or externally, and sources who work in sales say it?s unclear what his job description is, though he evidently has plenty of time to contribute to Forbes, where he posted 14 articles in July. (?The people I work for and the people who report to me know what I do,? Rogers, 63, told Deadspin in an email.)

Forbes is not owned by Great Hill and is a competitor to G/O Media. So, it’s kinda weird for your employee, who has an office, but no title or job description, to be contributing to a competitor’s site.

Anyway, things got even more bizarre last week. Perhaps, as part of management’s anger at the Deadspin article, G/O Media bosses sent around a memo to all staffers that is pretty messed up if you’re at all familiar with how media tends to work:

The G/O handbook declares that the company can search employees? ?personal vehicles, parcels, purses, handbags, backpacks, briefcases, lunch boxes,? review all electronic communications made on company property, and disclose those messages to others if the company deems it appropriate. The new rules also strangely allow the company to access reporters? ?tweets? and bars employees from using encrypted email programs?a common tool journalists often use to protect highly confidential sources.

Perhaps most bizarrely, the handbook also establishes an attendance policy and a dress code. Employees must arrive between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., according to the handbook, and are required to wear ?smart casual? attire. ?Offensive? logos or ?sweatpants, exercise pants, Bermuda shorts, short shorts, biker shorts, Mini-skirts, beach dresses, midriff tops, and halter tops? are all banned.

That’s the kind of thing that a really paranoid management who has totally lost control over its employees would demand. It’s a “the beatings will continue until morale improves” kind of thing. Most of the stuff is just culturally clueless about how to treat reporters. But the ban on encryption — obviously to allow management to better snoop on emails — is positively insane. The company still employs some great investigative reporters, who regularly rely on encrypted emails to protect their sources. Requiring no such thing in a media company is suicidal.

Indeed, one of G/O’s excellent reporters, Dell Cameron, has already said the company would need to fire him if they want him to stop using encryption:

Cameron later noted that he heard that the company will “scrub” the “corpolingo bullshit” and no one will be forced to give up encryption. But still. To even send around such a document suggests a pretty profound cluelessness.

Meanwhile, the reporters there are unionized, and the union notes that many of the policies in the handbook obviously contradict their existing contract and are “incompatible with our work.”

The big question to me, though, is what the hell did Great Hill Partners and Spanfeller think they were buying in the first place? Didn’t they have some understanding of what they were getting? Because, so far, all of these moves suggest they just bought the property without understanding literally anything about it, other than that people had heard of it and it got some traffic.

Filed Under: encryption, journalism
Companies: g/o media, gawker, gizmodo

At-Home Dental Appliance Company Sues Website For Having Opinions About Its Products

from the feeling-ways-about-stuff,-huh?-I'm-calling-my-lawyer! dept

An at-home dental appliance company has a problem with the website Lifehacker. It’s the sort of problem it thinks can only be solved by filing a baseless defamation suit. SmileDirectClub — maker of DIY teeth-straightening equipment — is taking the site to court for an article originally titled “You Could Fuck Up Your Mouth With SmileDirectClub.” The title has since been changed to suggest any “at-home orthodontics” could fuck up your mouth, but the wording of the article remains unchanged.

The gist of the article is that straightening teeth requires direct oversight by qualified professionals — something that seems unlikely to happen with at-home orthodontics. The author of post — citing dental professionals and a few online forums — notes that without proper, direct care, in-home dental appliances actually can cause worse alignment or result in the loss of teeth.

I’m halfway through an unusually long two-year program of Invisalign, the most popular brand of aligner. (The company behind Invisalign also makes SmileDirectClub’s aligners.) Every ten weeks I see my orthodontist for a checkup, new aligners, and advice. On a recent visit, I admitted that I’d started leaving my aligners out for longer periods (at parties or picnics), and was making up for it by leaving them in an extra day each.

My orthodontist gently explained that while my aligners are still pushing my teeth into place, my teeth want to shift back, and they’ll take every opportunity to do so. In effect, I’ve been very slowly wiggling my teeth. And wiggling teeth makes them fall out.

I no longer leave my aligners out for long periods.

So, given the average human’s desire to take shortcuts or do whatever’s most comfortable, rather than what’s most necessary, at-home dental work, although cheaper, could cause serious problems down the road. Hence the need for professional care, rather than made-to-order appliances and online checkups based on photos of your mouth.

SmileDirectClub is pissed off. Never litigate angry. It only makes your arguments stupider. The complaint [PDF] opens with claims of things that never happened before devolving into general complaints about internet business models and website lineage. (h/t First Amendment warrior/lawyer Daniel Horwitz)

On April 6, 2018, Gizmodo through its weblog called Lifehacker, which is located at www.lifehacker.com, published an article written by Douglas entitled “You Could Fuck Up Your Mouth With SmileDirectClub” (the “Untruthful Article”).

Through this outrageous, misleading and vulgar title, Gizmodo intended to lure the 24 million readers of Lifehacker to an article filled with unsubstantiated false statements and innuendo that attacks Plaintiff’s products and services.

Although Douglas readily admits in the Untruthful Article that he never used or even tried Plaintiff’s products and services, he proceeds with a hatchet job based upon a comparison to a failed company that is not comparable for purposes of his statements; citation to a message board that does not support his statements; and conclusions that Plaintiff’s products and services are “bad” and “cheap.”

Actually, the article doesn’t make either of those claims. It merely suggests using an at-home version will possibly result in tooth problems.

Obviously that’s because I’m lucky enough to afford the more expensive option. If you can’t, it can be very hard to hear that your only available option is a bad one. And maybe you’ll end up just fine with the cheap version—by all appearances, thousands of people have. But if you go remote, please be careful. Research as much as you can, and follow the instructions carefully. Don’t wiggle your teeth until they fall out.

Even with the original title, the article is not defamatory. The key word in the headline is “could.” On top of that, the assertions made are supported by statements from dental professionals and users of these at-home products. The headline change shifts the focus from SmileDirectClub, but does not change anything about the assertions and opinions that compose the body of the post.

From that terrible start, the lawsuit goes off the rails. Apparently, SmileDirectClub believes “clickbait” and “part of the Gawker network” are pretty much all that’s needed to successfully state defamation claims.

Even when confronted with the falsity of their article and admitting that one of the citations does not support the statements in the article, Defendants refuse to remove the Untruthful Article.

They refuse to do so because it is how they make their money.

Douglas and Gizmodo made such statements and used the outrageous “You Could Fuck Up Your Mouth With SmileDirectClub” title to bait consumers into viewing the article so that they could obtain revenues from banner advertising.

This continues a pattern over a decade of defamatory shock-style “journalism” by Gawker Media and its progeny (such as Lifehacker), whose weblogs were bought out of bankruptcy and now are held by Gizmodo.

Douglas, as a former reporter for Gawker, also has ties to the now defunct Gawker Media.

Defendants willfully, intentionally, and maliciously created a false story to drive “clicks.”

There’s more later in the lawsuit, where — for no apparent reason — SmileDirectClub decides to regale the court with tales of Gawker’s fall from grace at the hand of Peter Thiel-backed lawyers who had every intention of destroying the company, rather than simply seeking to have a grievance redressed.

SmileDirectClub also apparently believes — incorrectly — that statements of opinion must come with a disclaimer clearly designating them as opinions.

The Untruthful Article does not contain a disclaimer that it constitutes opinion only or that the statements therein do not reflect the views of Gizmodo or Lifehacker.

And it deliberately misreads the paragraph quoted above to portray it as an unsubstantiated statement of fact.

Finally, Douglas makes the unsubstantiated statement that, if one cannot afford a traditional orthodontist, SmileDirectClub is a “bad” option.

He further refers to SmileDirectClub’s products as “cheap” in connection with his allegation that the products are “bad.”

Douglas’s conclusion is not based on any factual evidence and is unsupportable.

It’s his opinion about at-home products based on his personal experience and the not-unreasonable assumption that many people won’t take the best care of their own teeth if the only person overseeing them is a Skyped-in dental professional viewing a tooth-filled selfie. And it’s followed by statements the lawsuit chooses to omit, which says many people have had success straightening their teeth using in-home products like those offered by SmileDirect.

The other supposed damning evidence presented by SmileDirect is the site’s attempt to fix the problems noted by the company.

On April 8, 2018, counsel for Plaintiff emailed a letter to Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Douglas, and Kirsch in which Plaintiff demanded that Gizmodo and Douglas immediately remove the Untruthful Article. A true and correct copy of the April 8, 2018, letter is attached hereto as Exhibit 6.

On April 9, 2018, counsel for Plaintiff caused the letter to be hand delivered upon Gizmodo. Gizmodo acknowledged receipt as shown in the email from Gizmodo’s General Counsel. A true and correct copy of the email is attached hereto as Exhibit 7.

On April 10, 2018, counsel for Plaintiff received an email from Gizmodo in response to Plaintiff’s April 8, 2018 email and April 9, 2018 letter. A true and correct copy of the response email is attached hereto as Exhibit 8.

Gizmodo asserts in its email that “Mr. Douglas meant to link to an additional discussion forum about aligners, and he will update the article to do so.”

Thus, Gizmodo admits that the Untruthful Article’s link to www.bracesforum.net is misleading but refuses to take the Untruthful Article down.

Gizmodo doesn’t actually admit what SmileDirect says it admits. And even if the link was misleading, another link was provided and the post’s title changed. None of this needed to be done. The article wasn’t defamatory to begin with, even if the title was somewhat of a cheap shot in its original form.

Then it’s time for more of this padding, which does little more than suggest SmileDirect’s legal representation thinks courts run on emotion, rather than legal interpretations of existing laws.

Lifehacker, through its villainous lineage and Gawker Media parentage, continues the bad conduct of Gawker Media.

At best, Lifehacker’s Untruthful Article shows a reckless indifference for the truth, which is consistent with Gizmodo’s pattern of conduct going back to its origins with Gawker Media.

To sum up: “Gawker was once sued successfully for defamation. I rest my case.” Perhaps the plaintiff believes the court has some v. Gawker judgment boilerplate laying around just in case any of its now-bastardized children have roused the rabble again.

Speaking of competent representation, it appears SmileDirect is hoping Gizmodo, et al will be held libel for slandering without proper disclaimers or whatever.

If you can’t see or read the picture, the heading/subheading reads:

COUNT II

TRADE LIABLE/PRODUCT DISPARAGEMENT

Finally, the lawsuit ends with a plea for the article to be removed and anyone associated with the site from ever reposting it in any form. You know, a little prior restraint to go along with everything else that’s wrong this lawsuit. SmileDirect wants this to happen before the judge even receives a response from Gizmodo or weighs the merits of the dental company’s arguments.

It’s a stupid lawsuit but it’s still going to be a legitimate pain in the ass. Tennessee has a relatively worthless anti-SLAPP law and courts there have allowed incredibly dubious defamation lawsuits to proceed past motions to dismiss. This could be an easy win for Gizmodo or a protracted battle that gives the plaintiff’s arguments far too much credit. Either way, it’s something a good anti-SLAPP law would keep this from being a boon for legal representation and a drag on protected speech.

Filed Under: anti-slapp, defamation, lifehacker, opinion, slapp, teeth alignment, teeth straightening, tennessee
Companies: gawker, gizmodo, smiledirectclub