SAN JOSE - John Stossel filed a federal complaint on September 22 in San Jose against Facebook, Inc., Science Feedback and Climate Feedback for defamation.
According to the complaint, Stossel is an award-winning career journalist with a formerly unblemished reputation for truthful and accurate reporting who posted on Facebook two short video reports in which he interviewed experts in the climate change arena about facts and data that Defendants conceded last year were true.
Without identifying a single false fact contained in the video reports – and in one instance, apparently without even bothering to review the video at all – Defendants publicly announced that Stossel’s reporting had failed a “fact-check," the suit says.
In one video, Defendants allegedly falsely attributed to Stossel a claim he never made, and on that basis flagged the content as “misleading” and “missing context,” so that would-be viewers would be routed to the false attribution statement.
To the second video, Defendants affixed a “partly false” / “[contains] factual inaccuracies” label, despite Defendants’ knowledge that the content contained no false facts, the suit says. Stossel challenged the defendants, and they claimed it had to do with the "tone" of Stossel's speech and not any actual false facts, the suit claims. Stossel claims that the Defendants intentionally, and maliciously, defamed him with the intent of doing harm to him and his reputation.
Stossel seeks damages in excess of $1 million and cost of suit. Stossel is represented by Krista L. Baughman of Dhillon Law Group Inc.
U.S. District Court Northern District of California San Jose Division case number 5:21-cv-07385-VKD