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submitted 12 hours ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

The BBC has vowed to defend itself against the $10bn lawsuit that the US president, Donald Trump filed against it.

In a complaint filed on Monday evening, Trump sought $5bn in damages each on two counts, alleging that the BBC defamed him, and that it violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Trump alleged the broadcaster “intentionally, maliciously and deceptively” edited the 6 January speech he gave before the attack on the US Capitol.

The BBC has previously acknowledged the editing was an “error of judgment” and apologised to Trump, but insisted there was no legal basis for a defamation claim. Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, and Deborah Turness, the head of BBC News, resigned over the controversy last month.

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[-] aarRJaay@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago

How much of the licence fee is going to go on this crap? Just ignore him and he'll go away

[-] uss_entrepreneur@startrek.website 47 points 10 hours ago

How does jurisdiction work here? The piece never aired in the US, bbc is based in Britain, yet he’s filing in Florida?

[-] wjrii@lemmy.world 8 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Trump is a resident of Florida, and the BBC does business in Florida via the website, BBCNews, Britbox licensing, etc. The complaint even talks about gray-market VPN viewing of iPlayer. Jurisdiction isn't really the issue. Establishing any actual harm at all will be the issue, to say nothing of "billions" of dollars worth of it from some splicing that is honestly editorial shading at worst. He is super pissed off in that speech, issues way more shaded threats than calls to peaceful actions, and pardoned the people who killed or injured multiple Capitol Police. Proving that the 10 or twenty people in Florida who actually saw the thing is worth anything to a plaintiff who won the fucking election is going to be an incredibly tall order for any half-way conscientious judge or jury.

It's typical Trump "lawfare," complete with breathless nonsense adjectives in the complaint to make the diaper baby anger-happy when he reads it. Only the sheer awfulness and expense of American litigation makes it even conceivable that the BBC will eventually settle, and if they do it will probably be right before discovery after they exhaust any motions to dismiss and other procedural tactics.

[-] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 23 points 11 hours ago

Wasn't it $5b just an hour ago?

[-] bajabound@lemmy.world 25 points 11 hours ago

It's a rapidly evolving matter. And $5b just doesn't go as far as it did an hour ago.

[-] meejle@lemmy.world 10 points 10 hours ago
[-] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 20 points 10 hours ago

Three dozen eggs, or 4GB of RAM.

[-] bajabound@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Now you're talking about big boy money the small billionaires just don't have.

[-] orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 8 hours ago

How much could eggs cost, Michael? $10 billion?

[-] nulluser@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

$5bn in damages each on two counts,

5x2

[-] kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago

Hey man, I work construction and only know 2x4

[-] Paddzr@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

5 billion per case.

[-] slothrop@lemmy.ca 15 points 12 hours ago

Sure they will!
No way will they capitulate!
.
.
.
. /s

[-] then_three_more@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

I don't think they have a choice. Where they're not a commercial organisation they be seen to back down and settle out of court. The public and political backlash would be way to great.

[-] elgordino@fedia.io 21 points 11 hours ago

At least they don’t have a merger they’re trying to get through, also giving away tax payer dollars is much harder than a corpo just bending the knee.

[-] blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 hours ago
this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
219 points (100.0% liked)

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