A Florida judge has ruled that Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation case against the BBC can proceed, throwing out the corporation’s attempt to have it dismissed.
Judge Jeffrey T Kuntz allowed the defamation claim to continue, but struck out a second claim brought under Florida’s consumer protection laws. Trump accused the BBC of doctoring his January 6th speech in a 2024 Panorama episode, splicing together two remarks made far apart to suggest he urged supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell”. Trump insisted they used AI (or ‘SI’, as the White House now insists it’s called) to “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively” edit his words…
The judge said the edit went beyond ordinary trimming and created something different from what Trump actually said. Whether Trump can prove his case and show damages will be decided later. Trump hailed the ruling as a “Huge Victory”. It ain’t over yet…
Lucy Powell told Sky News that the Ed Miliband-Russell Brand interview happened in part because the ‘social media age’ had not begun by 2015:
“Look, I mean, he approached the Labour Party, he approached the campaign team, and we’re in very different times now. We weren’t in the social media age at the time – where you could maybe search things up and see allegations about somebody at the time. and as I say, if there was any suggestion at all, we were dealing with someone who was a known sexual predator at the time, then, of course, you know, no one would have done that. But as I say, he was a well known public figure. Lots of people from Hollywood to the BBC to many others gave this person a very, very powerful platform. And we didn’t know at the time, unfortunately. It was a different era.”