#SLAPP suits

[alephskoteinos]

A short article remarking upon and commemorating the second dismissal of The Satanic Temple's case against the Queer Satanic collective.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

"An Ontario judge has dismissed a $1-million libel action by three nurses who faced disciplinary action for their anti-vaccine views during the pandemic, calling the plantiffs' decision to sue "puzzling" and "surprising." 

The lawsuit was dismissed by the court under Ontario's anti-SLAPP legislation. SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation and is a legal manoeuvre traditionally used by the rich and powerful to intimidate, silence and/or bankrupt opponents. Ontario introduced legislation in 2015 designed to protect against such gag proceedings from using the courts to silence expression on matters of public interest. 

Kristen Nagle of London, Ont., Kristal Pitter of Tillsonburg, Ont., Sarah Choujounian of Toronto and the Canadian Frontline Nurses filed their court action in December 2021, alleging the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) and independent B.C. news outlet Together News Inc. (TNI) caused harm to their personal and professional reputations with separate online articles published in the fall of 2021.

In her 29-page decision issued Dec. 23, Superior Court Justice Marie-Andrée Vermette sided with the defendants, saying the plaintiffs "failed to establish they have suffered sufficiently serious harm" and "failed to show a causal link between the harm they allege and the publications in issue."

Vermette cited the anti-SLAPP legislation, saying there were "significantly more important sources of harm" to the nurses' reputations that were "unrelated" to the publications, including: 

Professional misconduct investigations of all three nurses by the province's nursing regulator, the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO).The fact all three nurses were terminated from their respective jobs with cause.Numerous media reports about the the nurses, including articles by what the court called "high-profile media organizations."

Vermette also called into question the plaintiffs' decision to sue in the first place, calling it "puzzling," given that similar information appeared in "numerous" other articles published in Canada.

She also said the decision to specifically sue TNI, "a small and regional media organization," was "particularly surprising" because the plaintiffs "chose to ignore similar expressions made by media giants."

Alexander Boissonneau-Lehner, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, responded "no comment" in an email when reached by CBC News on Tuesday. 

The court's decision to dismiss the lawsuit under anti-SLAPP legislation is the latest judgment against anti-vaccine and anti-science groups attempting to use the courts to silence and intimidate critics. 

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, SLAPP suits were the traditional tactic of the rich and powerful to bully critics into silence, but the legal tactic has been increasingly used lately by those spreading health misinformation in an attempt to hush critics."

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[queersatanic]

November 2023 court activity with The Satanic Temple

If you've been looking for a way to more passively keep up with us and The Satanic Temple, or just want to help with our legal fees more regularly, consider becoming a Patreon supporter.

Although we continue to win in court, #TST continues to use the process to harass us and drain our finances.

It'll be four years in April, and it may be that much again before The Satanic Temple exhausts all of their appeals and losing arguments against us.

But the work continues, and TST is an abusive religious organization that has to be stopped.

[high-theyre-frendough]

Ok so I have no idea if this is better or not with or without context. Without context, the video above depicts a musical number telling someone called Bob to go fuck themselves, and making outlandish accusations of things that Bob supposedly did, including some kind of graphic and potentially triggering references in the lyrics. (Mostly references to various outlandish and upsetting topics, and saying that Bob was involved.) Below, I'm going to explain the context from memory. (I have not watched this show in a few years, and only rewatched the above song.)

Basically, the person who starts of singing is John Oliver, host of the HBO show Last Week Tonight. Five years ago, he made a video about coal, linked below. In this video he talks about how coal jobs are being affected and stuff in recent years. In the video, he references a man named Bob Murray, who owns a coal company. Combining various anecdotes from people who worked for Bob Murray, John Oliver makes a joke where a person in a giant squirrel mascot costume tells Bob Murray to eat shit.

After this episode, there was silence for a while. This video and topic was not brought up again, which isn't unusual for Last Week Tonight. That is until 3 years ago, when John Oliver got permission from lawyers to make a follow up video to discuss the type of frivolous lawsuit known as a SLAPP suit. Basically, this kind of lawsuit is about how powerful people will sue newspapers and comedians for making fun of them. Bob Murray had sued HBO (or maybe just John Oliver specifically? I cannot remember) over the joke about Bob Murray supposedly claiming to have talked to squirrels, and he was mad about the joke where the guy in the squirrel costume told him to eat shit. John Oliver won the lawsuit, and in response, used the lawsuit as a topic for the video. At the video on SLAPP suits, John Oliver transitions into that musical number, which ends up in Times Square. Its this elaborate musical number just telling Bob Murray to eat shit and it is beautiful. Bob had sued small papers trying to find answers about shit involving coal mining that resulted in hurting real people to keep them quiet (allegedly). Like this guy did awful shit, and seeing this musical number is both satisfying and just absolutely hilarious. I may not have watched John Oliver in a while, and he may have some weird stuff going on (I stopped watching his show during quarantine because the jokes about harassing Adam Driver and the jokes about wanting to have sex with horses got kind of weird and unsettling) but like some great stuff has come out of this show.

[iinfosurge]

Lies, and money, and a history of (no) violence! Oh my!

Believe all women? Please don’t. Especially not a woman by the name of Jo Natauri.

If the recent verdict in the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard case taught us anything, it’s this: Women are just as likely as men to lie, manipulate, and mislead. If anything, some of them are more likely to. After all, for years now, we have been encouraged, loudly and repeatedly, to believe all women, even the ones lacking a shred of evidence. As we saw in that Virginia courtroom, the jury determined that some women exploited this.

The following story plays out as Amber Heard, ironically, warned in her Washington Post op-ed against abuse where, drawing an analogy to the Titanic, people will “patch holes” to protect a powerful man accused of abuse – not because they care about him – but because they have a vested interest in his enterprise staying afloat. What happens if the woman is the powerful enterprise? This reality, a brutal one, is full of false allegations, cover-ups, unconscionable lies, and more than a few uncomfortable truths. It involves attempts by powerful people to destroy a good man’s name to keep Jo Natauri afloat.

The man’s name is Tiku Natauri.

Before going any further, it’s important to make the following clear: Everything you read here is backed up by facts – in other words, actual evidence. Before writing this piece, my investigation reviewed a number of illuminating email and text exchanges, documents, video footage, and audio recordings (including the police recordings embedded below). Now, you may find yourself asking the following: Why am I reading the story here, on Substack, and not somewhere more, shall we say, prestigious? Good question. Well, the answer is quite simple.

The editors I reached out to were terrified by the idea of being hit with SLAPP suits. For the uninitiated, these suits are intended to intimidate and silence critics. They are frighteningly effective. This is America, after all, a place where slapping someone with a lawsuit has become a national hobby, a recreational activity, just something people do to pass the time. Americans sue for fun. This is why you’re reading the story here (thank you, by the way). It’s not because other outlets didn’t want to run the story. They did. However, the costs involved – or more specifically, the perceived costs – of being sued by someone, who has already spent millions on attorneys, gave outlets the chills.

The final question many will ask is this: Why are you writing it, and why should I read it? Like the Amber Heard affair, this is a public interest story: The number of articles referencing #MeToo and #BelieveWomen have exploded in recent weeks, and here seems to be another prominent #MeToo ambassador falsely alleging domestic violence.

Journalism that actually serves the interests of the public is at a premium. It’s also under threat. This story matters to anyone in possession of a conscience.

[gwydionmisha]

Elon Musk's Thermonuclear Defamation Suit Is a Dud

[ohmysatan42]

Not me flirting with a guy by sending him john oliver youtube videos.

[ask-zaukodar]

A semi-brief rant about Chris Avellone and his legal settlement.  I am not a lawyer and nothing I say is legal advice, just personal observations based on the writing presented.

I read today that Chris Avellone got a settlement from his Illinois-filed lawsuit that forced the two women he was suing to officially retract their statements and allegedly “provides for a seven-figure payment that includes the return of the attorney fee award entered against Mr. Avellone.”

Not going to link any of the news articles, they’re all out there dated around March 25 or so.  What’s interesting is the chest-thumping of his supporters about how “he was acquitted” and “found innocent” and “his accusers should be jailed for their lies” and all that usual drivel.

For those not in the know: Chris Avellone is a video game developer and writer, who famously worked on games such as “Planescape Torment”, “Icewind Dale”, “Fallout New Vegas”, “Divinity Original Sin 2″ and other RPG gems.  He was accused of sexual misconduct back in 2020 and decided to sue his accusers in California court in 2021.  That lawsuit was appealed and defeated by California’s anti-SLAPP laws in 2022, so later in 2022 he filed a second lawsuit in Illinois Federal Court.  Before any serious progress was made on the case there was a settlement which seems to heavily favor him: his accusers have issued public retractions of their earlier statements, he may (or may not) be getting a seven-figure paycheck, and with this win he may (or may not) get back on the horse of writing up video games.

Just want to point a few things out about all of this:

The exact terms of the settlement are confidential.

“Provides for a seven-figure payment” does necessarily mean it was outright paid, it could be a conditional “if you do this then you pay” as part of the terms.  See “The exact terms” above.

“The accusers retracted their statements” does not necessarily mean they were lies.  Within the American legal system “the statements were retracted as part of a legal settlement” and “the statements originally made were true” are not mutually exclusive.

The refrain of “he was found innocent/acquitted” is not true, as this was a civil suit and there is no judgment of guilty or not guilty.

Directly related to the above, the settlement was reached before discovery phase, which means no final judgments of any kind could be rendered.

“This means he will work on <game name here> again” is also not necessarily true, as businesses may decide to not touch him.

So what happened?  I don’t know, and that’s kind of the point.  I could speculate until the cows came home and that wouldn’t mean any of what I said is true.  The ultimate truth is buried in the confidential terms of the settlement, which won’t be revealed unless one party breaks confidentiality...which would almost certainly cost that party dearly.

Is any of this going to stop Avellone’s fanboys from engaging in rampant misogyny and harassment campaigns?  Probably not, as they tend to believe whatever fits neatly into their own little world view.  But if anyone else was disappointed by this, including me, there is at least some wiggle room for comfort: just because this outcome happened doesn’t mean the original issue wasn’t real and it doesn’t make any guarantees for the future.

[socialjusticefail]

This talks about all of the examples where rich people decided to sue to shut people up. It also argues that a federal anti-SLAPP.

[tangibletechnomancy]

One big point where I find people talking past each other in the AI art debate is that in art, there are a lot of things that aren't illegal - and shouldn't be - but are rude.

It's not illegal to use a sample of someone's copyrighted material in a sufficiently transformative way, and it should never become so. I could photomanipulate an image of Mickey Mouse into a landscape if I wanted and sell it as a print and not even Disney could stop me. It never has been illegal to do this. It never SHOULD be. If it was, we'd start seeing a ton of SLAPP suits over vaguely similar poses because...hey, guess what, referencing is using someone's copyrighted material in a transformative way. We all recognize the idea of trying to copyright a pose or sue someone for using a similar color palette to you or for looking at your art as inspiration as patently absurd - so much so that it's regularly brought up as a bad-faith argument in other copyright discussions! - but imagine if someone could. Disney sure as hell would - imagine no longer being able to write about public domain fairy tales because you publicly mentioned you liked the Disney movie about the same fairy tale once. That is what you're opening the door for when you try to manage the dataset ethics issue by copyright law.

However, on the other side...it's still really fucking rude to use someone's work in a transformative way outside of the bounds of 1) what is broadly socially permitted, and 2) what that artist requests.

Even though it would be decidedly not illegal for me to go and copy-paste a single pixel from a dozen other people's work into a canvas of my own and make my own piece out of it using only the scale, copy-paste, and smudge tools, it still has the potential to be extremely rude depending on who I'm taking it from and why. I'd love to do a piece like this to open a dialogue on how transformative a piece must be to no longer constitute "stealing", but I'm not going to sample those pixels from small-time illustrators who are already scared for what sampling could do to their livelihoods as a "ha ha~ I took your wo-ork and you ca-an't stop me~" because that would be incredibly fucking rude, well beyond the level of emotional impact needed to make the statement.

Image synthesis is, unquestionably, transformative enough to constitute fair use under current copyright law, and any amendment to the law that would make it not so opens the door to far more harm than it would ever prevent - but, as it transitions from being a fun scientific novelty to an actual useful product, it becomes rude at best to ignore artists' wishes in model training. In fact, it becomes rude on a level that may be best managed with privacy laws, since, let's face it, there are a lot of entities out there that not only don't CARE about not being extremely rude, but REVEL in being jackasses because the law can't stop them (looking at you, Unstable Diffusion).

[sophieinwonderland]

Speaking of being a wrecking ball and making enemies, I have so many asks piling up that I need to respond to...

But instead I feel like trolling a vindictive thin-skinned manchild with vast amounts of wealth he uses to bully and intimidate anyone who criticizes him by launching SLAPP suits against them.

I'm sure this will end fine. 🤷‍♀️

[alephskoteinos]

Honestly, the fact that SLAPP suits are a thing in the USA at all is just utterly absurd. Why, in a country where you can ostensibly say whatever you want, people can sue you into silence for saying things they don't like?

[lighthouse-system]

My trans siblings, please listen to me.

I learned some disturbing news about a nearby "surgeon" in my state that I watch very closely named Kathy Rumer. Ms. Rumer (I refuse to call her a doctor) is known as "The Butcher of Ardmore, PA" and that title was not given to her willy-nilly. Due to her dwindling reputation in Pennsylvania, she has started taking medicaid from outside states.

This is extremely concerning because Kathy has a long history of transphobia, medical malpractice, filing SLAPP suits against whistleblowers, and abuse towards patients/victims and fellowship trainees alike. By the way, if you're in Eastern PA, I recommend giving Dr. Kathryn Brandt (Reading PA) or Dr. Katherine Rose (Bryn Mawr PA) a look-- two infinitely better surgeons. I had top surgery through Dr. Rose in July 2022 and her team went above and beyond to help me out. I'm in the process of getting things done with Brandt, and her team is also amazing.

Rumer has also decided she will see exclusively trans patients, meaning she has chosen to target us specifically. But don't let that fool you: before making that choice, she permanently disabled a cis man who needed gynaecomastia surgery by severing ligaments in his arm. So it's not just us she's hurt. She's hurt cis people too.

You will see reviews online that say otherwise or claim this to be a troll operation. Do not fall for it. Rumer creates sock puppet accounts on Reddit, Google etc to post fake reviews propping her clinic up.

A friend of mine in the group we watch her in has made a much longer, more in-depth post about her atrocities here. There are accounts of Rumer prescribing meds that could have killed a patient, Rumer ghosting or even denying patients who were in desperate need of care for complications she created, and more. And while no one has died under her care (yet, or that we know of), it would be best that it stay that way.

The scariest part is that the lawyers she's appointed to work for her are Trump-aligned, and the court she has threatened to take her victims to has a Trump-appointed, anti-LGBT judge.

Kathy Rumer is an active threat to the trans community. Please, please do not let you or your fellow trans siblings go to her. Do not let the short wait time and cheap price tag entice you. There is a reason her clinic is like a revolving door. When you go under the knife, speed is not the primary concern; accuracy, gentleness and safety are. She claims to be a "gift from God" for trans people, when in reality she is leaving a trail of blood in her path, and she could very well be coming for your state next.

Edit 1: "Apprentice" wasn't the best term, so I subbed in "fellowship trainee" instead

Edit 2: Took out my assumptions of her being abusive towards other docs bc I want concrete evidence first.

[queersatanic]

Congrats on winning the court case!! Please do something nice for yourselves to celebrate, you've earned it :)

Yeah! Hopefully, members of The Satanic Temple hold the owners accountable and this is the end of it.

[official-clark-kent]

Did you read this article about Lex Luthor? I know he was someone you used to do a lot of exposés on, and I heard he tried to hit you with a slapp suit even.

https://www.tumblr.com/gothamnewsnetwork-official/758841172820148224

Ah, yeah, that. I was definitely surprised to see it. (:

[feather-dancer]

If you support Rowling in any way, please unfollow me for reasons I can't say because of the lack of anti SLAPP suit laws in the UK.