No, Filing A Defamation Lawsuit Is Never The Only Way You Can Clear Your Name

from the do-people-not-realize-this dept

The Washington Post's Erik Wemple (who, for reasons I've never understood, always refers to himself as "The Erik Wemple Blog," which is really annoying for readers), had a truly bizarre article recently about Devin Nunes' defamation lawsuit against CNN, in which Wemple suggests that maybe this Nunes lawsuit is "halfway decent." It is not. As we discussed in our own post about the lawsuit, this one may be his worst one yet and has little chance of surviving.

Still, what I found most bizarre about the Wemple piece, is that includes this truly ridiculous paragraph:

There are those who believe that a courtroom is the appropriate place to feud about alleged dairy secrets. “Kudos to Congressman Nunes for utilizing the court system to vindicate his reputation,” wrote defamation attorney Elizabeth Locke of Clare Locke LLP in an email (before the filing of the CNN suit). “In the United States, a defamation action that seeks monetary damages is the only remedy available to those who have been defamed. We should be celebrating, not disparaging, those who use the courts to resolve their disputes.”

If you recognize the name of that lawyer, Elizabeth Locke, or her firm, Clare Locke, it might be because we wrote about them last year, in highlighting how the firm and Elizabeth in particular have truly bizarre views on free speech, support making libel laws more stringent, and the firm specializes in intimidating journalists and news organizations to kill stories about important and wealthy people.

Even leaving that aside, Locke's quote is just so out of touch with reality. A defamation lawsuit is "the only remedy" to those who have been defamed? Bullshit. How about just proving the defamer wrong? We live in an age when anyone can publish, and so if someone has said something false about you, you don't need to run to court and make use of the power of the state to try to correct the record. You can do so yourself.

Defamation law was originally designed in a time when there really was little recourse if, say, a newspaper defamed you. They controlled the media channel, and an ordinary person would have little direct recourse to present their side of the story. But that's not true any more thanks to the internet. On the internet, if someone says something false about you, rather than going through an expensive and wasteful defamation lawsuit and tying up the court system, you can just go on the internet and tell your side of the story. If you do it well (and people can help you do this for a mere fraction of what a pricey defamation lawyer will cost you), you can have a much more effective "recourse" to the defamation. You get your side out there much faster and more thoroughly, and the court of public opinion can determine who is right. If you present your case compellingly, whoever defamed you will end up having their own credibility and reputation hurt.

All of that works entirely without resorting to the court system and the frequently abused system of defamation law, which Nunes has been using to intimidate journalists, political rivals, and critics. The fact that a newspaper like the Washington Post would quote Locke without pointing out how what's she saying is utter nonsense is disappointing. Given Locke's history of trying to threaten various news sources, it's a shame that the Washington Post would even consider her a valid subject for a quote -- at least without qualifying the statement.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, defamation, devin nunes, elizabeth locke, free speech, marketplace of ideas
Companies: clare locke

Breitbart Snowflakes Threaten To Sue People Who Have Asked Advertisers To Stop Advertising On Breitbart

from the free-speech-hypocrites dept

Earlier this year, we wrote a story about the boutique law firm Clare Locke that appeared to specialize in intimidating news orgs with legal threats to try to get them to kill stories. One of the firm's partner, Elizabeth Locke, flat out says that she thinks there's too much press freedom:

"... the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of freedom of the press."

As we pointed out in that article, if you're a journalist hiring such a firm -- and a bunch of the #MeToo journalists have done so -- to try to stifle stories from other publications, it would suggest you're an incredible hypocrite. Journalists thrive on the First Amendment. If you're a journalist threatening to stifle others' free speech, you're a hypocrite.

Enter Breitbart. Because, of course it would be Breitbart. According to a Daily Beast article, Breitbart has hired Clare Locke to threaten a group of people who have been advocating for advertisers to drop their ads from Breitbart. I should say up front, that I think all of these attempts to push advertisers to drop ads is actually pretty silly. It's mostly symbolic and rarely has a real economic impact. It's just a silly game of tit for tat.

But, according to the letter written by Clare Locke's other partner, Thomas Clare, asking advertisers to stop advertising could be "unfair, fraudulent and deceptive." From the letter:

I write on behalf of my client, Breitbart News Network, LLC. As you of course know, Breitbart has been the target of a months-long smear campaign by the online activist group “Sleeping Giants.” It has recently been revealed that you are a founder and leader of this group. My client is considering potential legal action against you, and we therefore demand that you preserve and retain certain documents in your possession that may be relevant to potential civil claims.

These include potential claims concerning unfair, fraudulent, and deceptive practices intended to cause Breitbart economic harm. We believe that Sleeping Giants has sought to deceive the public and, in particular, purchasers of online advertising, by making false, deceptive, and disparaging claims about Breitbart and the news content it publishes — including, among other things, accusing Breitbart of distributing “anti-Semitic” propaganda, of promoting “white supremacy,” and of being a “neo-Nazi propaganda” website. Sleeping Giants has directed these and similar deceptive and misleading statements to companies that purportedly purchase advertisements appearing on Breitbart’s website — and has encouraged its members and others to do the same — in an effort to drive advertising revenue away from Breitbart, and to solicit donations and sell Sleeping Giants’ branded merchandise.

The letter goes on to angrily deny that it is any of those things (while also plugging the fact that the White House Chief of Staff reads it). It then goes on to concoct quite a fascinating conspiracy theory, arguing that "Sleeping Giants" is really designed for "commercial interests" because many of its founders apparently work in the ad tech business. How that creates any commercial advantage isn't exactly clear at all. It just implies that this somehow is a fraudulent practice.

Although, as stated above, the group and its organizers have long attempted to conduct these tortious actions behind a veil of anonymity, a recently-published article identified you, Matt Rivitz, as the founder of Sleeping Giants and the acknowledged proprietor of its social media accounts. That same article noted that you have long worked in online marketing and advertising. Notably, after your identity was involuntarily disclosed through investigative reporting, you claimed that you hid your identity and role with Sleeping Giants as an act of humility in order to “keep this about the mission rather than the individuals involved.” But your past, conflicting explanations for hiding your identity tell a different story. For example, in January 2017, an individual identified only as a Sleeping Giants “founder” — who cited biographical details specific to you — told the New York Times that Sleeping Giants was conducting its campaign targeting Breitbart’s advertisers anonymously because “some members of the group work in the digital-media industry.” Similarly, in March 2018, a Sleeping Giants “spokesman” acknowledged to GQ that “the people behind Sleeping Giants” elected to remain anonymous because they “work in marketing-related fields” and their targeting of online advertisers “might be perceived as creating some kind of conflict of interest.” These frank admissions, made at a time when you and your supporters in the ad tech world expected their identities to remain a secret, are extremely revealing and hint at a hidden and improper commercial motivation behind Sleeping Giants’ deceptive practices targeting Breitbart. It appears that the reason you and your backers did not want their identities known was because it would have revealed their shared economic interests and deceptive practices.

These unfair, fraudulent, and deceptive practices may give rise to civil liability both for you and the members of the online advertising and ad tech worlds that you coordinated with. These potential claims include, but certainly are not limited to, claims relating to violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law (Business and Professions Code Sections 17200, et seq.), fraud, violation of the Lanham Act, tortious interference with contract, and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage.

I'm trying to figure out what exactly the "shared economic interests" are in getting companies to stop advertising on a site? It seems that a much more logical (and obvious) explanation for why the Sleeping Giants folks wanted to remain anonymous was because working for an ad tech company while supporting advertising boycotts actually goes against their economic interests, and might make their own employers kinda pissed off. But, this letter assumes the exact opposite, without any actual explanation.

It then asks Rivitz to preserve all sorts of stuff, including communications with an insanely long list of individuals, organizations and companies -- including a bunch of Breitbart critics.

This seems like a pretty blatant intimidation tactic. And while the letter, hilariously, claims that this threat is really "about Sleeping Giants’ desire to stifle speech that does not adhere to its narrow liberal politics," it's hard to see how you can claim that when the whole point of the letter appears to be to stifle the speech of people asking for advertising boycotts.

And, of course, asking for advertising boycotts is pretty common on both sides of the traditional political divide. In fact, it's not difficult at all to find a whole host of Breitbart articles happily reporting on campaigns to pull ads from news orgs deemed "liberal." Separately, I'll note that it's fascinating to see a subtle shift in tone when Breitbart reports on similar campaigns targeted at Breitbart allies. Those stories suddenly talk about "liberal outrage," "liberal fascism," and "corporate warfare attacks from the left." Oddly, those earlier stories about removing ads from CNN, MSNBC, TBS and NBC don't have any of that kind of language. Indeed, they seem to focus on whatever "outrageous" thing done on those stations that lead to pressure to remove ads. Must be a coincidence, huh?

So, to be clear: ad boycotts are overrated, but if people want to do them, it is their First Amendment protected speech to call for such boycotts, no matter what the reason, no matter what their politics and no matter how silly. Threatening those who exercise their First Amendment speech in such a way with a lawsuit, however, is not supporting free speech. It is bullying censorial intimidation tactics, and Breitbart should be ashamed (if such a thing were possible). The site regularly likes to whine about liberals and universities stifling free speech, but apparently has no problem at all trying to stifle the speech of people who ask its own advertisers to stop advertising on the platform.

Either way, all this red team, blue team bullshit is getting pretty annoying. Silly people who identify as either left or right wing (which is a stupid designation anyway) will do stupid things. And silly people on the other side will generalize and stereotype based on those things, while doing the exact same things themselves. But, seriously, stop freaking out about one "side" doing the exact same thing your side is doing and then coming up with all sorts of silly rationalizations for why it's okay when your side does it, but a horrific violation of the law when the other side does it.

Filed Under: advertising, boycotts, chilling effects, first amendment, free speech, intimidation, sleeping giants, threats
Companies: breitbart, clare locke