“I Was Just Kidding!” Assertion Can’t Justify Dismissal of Libel Case
From Feitosa v. Keem, decided Tuesday by Judge William Skretny (W.D.N.Y.):
In this action, Plaintiff Dennis Feitosa alleges that Defendant Daniel Keem defamed him when he tweeted that “Def Noodles,” Feitosa’s YouTube persona, had been accused of grooming 12- to 15-year-old girls….
Keem also argues that the Tweet is protected by the First Amendment because it is not a factual assertion capable of being proven true. Rather, he argues, in light of the Twitter context, the Tweet is clearly a joke, an example of hyperbolic and rhetorical speech that no reader familiar with the Twitter genre would have taken as stating provable facts. Keem explains that within the insular influencer world both Feitosa and Keem inhabit, “comedians, entertainers, gamers, and influencers often post salacious and sometimes-controversial mocking content about each other and others with the hope of generating reactions among those who follow them.”
In support of this proposition, he submits Tweets where Feitosa himself appears to accuse Keem of domestic abuse, and online statements where Feitosa explains that “everything [he does] is a joke.” Keem argues that, given his Tweet’s placement within a war of words between these two influencers, his Tweet could not reasonably have been understood as conveying a factual assertion….
As noted above,
Article from Reason.com
