The most important lawsuit – Dagsavisen

Almost three years ago, the award-winning and acclaimed Welsh journalist Carole Cadwalladr held a fifteen minute long lecture which was to become legendary. She told about her excavation work for the newspaper The Observer, where she and colleagues had revealed the forces behind Brexit. She told about how the tech giant Facebook had been abused, so that voters were manipulated to vote “leave” and not “remain”. And she talked about the ties between multimillionaires, Russian interests and right-wing radical actors. About how huge sums of money had been used to spread lies about the EU on behalf of the leave campaign.

Instead of having even more contrived debates about cancel culture and no platforming, it is this type of issue that we should talk more about. Much more.

“The Brexit referendum took place in the dark. Because it took place on Facebook “, said Cadwalladr, pointing out that only you see your own news feed. Then it disappears, and no one knows who placed what there, what the message was, why exactly you got to see what you saw, how much money was paid or where this money came from. Facebook knows that. But they will not say it.

“This is about whether it is actually possible to have a free and fair choice, ever again. As the case stands, I do not think so “, was her conclusion.

One of those she named in the lecture was the multimillionaire Arron Banks. He has been a supporter of the Eurosceptic and right-wing populist politician Nigel Farage and donated large sums to his party UKIP, and he is behind the leave campaign. EU. In two sentences, she referred to “Banks’ lies” about hidden contacts with Russia.

[ Den forsvunne militærnekteren ]

Banks has been after her ever since. Among other things, he has sued her for defamation. This week, the case has gone to court. On Thursday, Cadwalladr posted a picture on Twitter with this comment: «4 years of mockery. 2.5 years of legal harassment. 3 brutal days in the witness box. It was designed to crush me. And it can do that ».

Banks has not sued TED, the organization that hosted Cadwalladr’s lecture, and which still has the video of it lying out on its platforms. He has also not sued The Observer, the newspaper she works for as a freelancer. Instead, he goes after the individual and demands huge sums of money in reparation.

The case Arron Banks is running has been called harassment by several freedom of expression and press organizations. The goal does not seem to be to restore his own honor, but to crack a troublesome and skilled journalist, once and for all. With the side effect that other digging journalists and the media they work for can think about both once and twice before publishing critical cases about powerful people with a lot of money next time.

[ Aldri mer 22. juli ]

The press freedom organizations that support Cadwalladr believe that the lawsuit to Banks is in reality a so-called Slapp – strategic lawsuit against public participation. This means that the individual journalist must ultimately spend so much time, money and energy defending himself against a powerful opponent, that he or she can no longer cope, and in any case does not have the capacity to work with journalism in addition to the legal process.

Ironically, in the TED talk, Cadwalladr talked about how the forces they revealed threatened them with lawsuits to stop the publication of the information about them. First out was Cambridge Analytica. The day before The Observer was to release the first case, a sensational interview with a defector Cadwalladr had a year to get to stand out, Facebook contacted. Now they would also take the newspaper to court if they published the interview.

“We did it anyway,” Cadwalladr said. The audience erupted in applause.

But who is clapping now? The support of the press organizations and other digging journalists is of course important. Still: Given the seriousness of this matter, it is otherwise astonishingly quiet. Cadwalladr is not a multimillionaire, and must raise money to fund the trial on the website «Democracy: Fight back».

[ Bidens borgerkrig ]

It’s an apt name. Cadwalladr’s first revelation of Cambridge Analytica was about a dangerous attack on a very basic element of democracy: free elections. She is now being persecuted in a way that poses a threat to another central part of the democratic foundation: freedom of expression.

Instead of having even more contrived debates about cancel culture and no platforming, it is this type of issue that we should talk more about. Much more. Because that’s what gag looks like in real life. It is not just in authoritarian regimes that journalists risk persecution. As long as the authorities do not provide laws and regulations that prevent this type of abuse of justice, it can happen in free democracies, too.

Friday was the last day in court. We hope the verdict will be a lesson for Arron Banks: You went out with the wrong lady. Democracy won.

The alternative is unthinkable.

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