Project Veritas has sued CNN for defamation over a segment in which one of its anchors commented on the group’s suspension from Twitter.
In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, the group claims that on Feb. 15, Ana Cabrera said that its suspension from Twitter was due to “spreading disinformation.” In fact, the group said, it was suspended for “repeated violations of Twitter’s policies prohibiting the sharing—or threats of sharing—of other people’s private information without consent.”
In the segment, Cabrera said, “We’re starting to see companies cracking down to try to stop the spread of misinformation and to hold some people who are spreading it accountable, Brian. For example, Twitter has suspended the account of Project Veritas, a conservative activist, uh, activist organization. At least that’s how they couch themselves … but this is part of a much broader crackdown, as we mentioned, by social media giants on accounts that are promoting misinformation.”
Carbrera was speaking to CNN’s Brian Stelter, who said that Project Veritas “got swept up in a Twitter policy by violating multiple rules on the site.”
In the lawsuit, Project Veritas claims that CNN already was “fully aware” of the reasons for its suspension and that Carbrera had tweeted out about the suspension a few days earlier.
“Even after Project Veritas provided CNN written notice informing it of the falsity of its statements, CNN demonstrated its malicious intent by refusing to retract or correct the defamatory statements of its employee,” the lawsuit stated.
CNN has been a target of Project Veritas on multiple occasions, and in December contacted law enforcement after the group’s founder, James O’Keefe, interrupted a network morning editorial after managing to gain access to the private meeting. “Legal experts say this may be a felony. We’ve referred it to law enforcement,” CNN said at the time.
Project Veritas is known for its “sting” operations, in which it tries to root out evidence of bias in the news media. While some have proved to be embarrassing for journalists and even led to a suspension last year, others have failed to have that same impact.
A spokesperson for the network said that they had no comment.
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