Twitch responds to $25m lawsuit about \u201csuggestive\u201d female streamers Amazon-owned Twitch has responded to a lawsuit filed against the livestreaming platform, which requested $25 million in damages because of suggestive content on the site. In their response, Twitch has filed for a SLAPP motion. In June, frequent plaintiff Erik Estavillo filed a lawsuit against Twitch, demanding damages due to claims that the platform had made him suffer through medical problems related to sex addiction, because of the content and algorithms on the site. Specifically, Estavillo listed the names of female Twitch streamers he sought to be permanently banned from the platform, arguing that they violated the platform\u2019s own community guidelines. The lawsuit, which was, at points, extremely descriptive, received widespread coverage for its complaints, especially because of the high-figure that was requested in damages. Twitch files Anti-SLAPP motion In a response, filed on August 18, Twitch\u2019s lawyers have asked for the complaint to be struck under Anti- SLAPP laws. Anti-SLAPP laws are intended to protect businesses and individuals from essentially baseless legal proceedings. Typically, these are suits only intended to be costly or time-wasting for the defendant, rather than actually seeking victory for the plaintiff. Twitch has requested that the court strike the plaintiff\u2019s complaint \u201con the grounds that Plaintiff\u2019s Complaint against Twitch is subject to a special motion to strike under California Code of Civil Procedure \u00a7 425.16.\u201d Code 425.16 refers to \u201ca disturbing increase in lawsuits brought primarily to chill the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition for the redress of grievances.\u201d Specifically, Twitch states that Estavillo\u2019s claims \u201cviolate California\u2019s SLAPP statute, C.C.P. \u00a7 425.16. Plaintiff\u2019s Complaint attempts to limit Twitch\u2019s right to decide what content to allow or not allow on its service, which falls squarely within Twitch\u2019s protected constitutional right of free speech.\u201d \u201cFortunately, California\u2019s SLAPP statute provides a mechanism for protecting against abusive lawsuits such as this one,\u201d Twitch continues. \u201cBecause Plaintiff\u2019s Complaint arises directly from content available in a public forum and acts in furtherance of speech about matters of public interest, the SLAPP statute shifts the burden to him to present admissible evidence substantiating his claims.\u201d Twitch states that Estavillo\u2019s complaint does not meet this burden to \u201cestablish a probability that he will prevail on his claims,\u201d for two reasons: Plaintiff\u2019s Complaint is barred in its entirety by the federal Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. \u00a7 230(c). – Even if not barred by the Communications Decency Act, Plaintiff\u2019s Complaint fails to state a viable claim under California law. – Twitch also notes that it is protected from such claims, as its Terms of Service state it \u201ctakes no responsibility and assumes no liability for any User Content or for any loss or damage resulting therefrom, nor is Twitch liable for any mistakes, defamation, slander, libel, omissions, falsehoods, obscenity, p****graphy, or profanity you may encounter when using the Twitch Services.\u201d You can read Twitch\u2019s full response here: They also highlight the plaintiff\u2019s history of prior lawsuits against major tech companies, and use quotes from his book, The PSN Plaintiff, such as bragging he has made \u201ca pretty decent online presence in the light of my lawsuits.\u201d If the plaintiff cannot meet the burden of evidence showing they can win the suit, then the case will be dismissed under Anti-SLAPP proceedings. Anti-SLAPP statutes often allow the defendant to collect attorney\u2019s fees from the plaintiff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twitch responds to $25m lawsuit about \u201csuggestive\u201d female streamers Amazon-owned Twitch has responded to a lawsuit filed against the livestreaming platform, which requested $25 million in damages because of suggestive content on the site. In their response, Twitch has filed for a SLAPP motion. In June, frequent plaintiff Erik Estavillo filed a lawsuit against Twitch, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}