StubNotice A SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) is a lawsuit filed with the primary intent of suppressing public discussion of, or exposure to, a specific view. In a consumer context, this often means taking legal action to suppress poor reviews of a product, or prevent open discussion of anti-consumer activity by a large company.
Common types of SLAPP
Sub-SLAPP actions
In recent years, the spreading of consumer journalism to Youtube and other centrally hosted content-sharing platforms has enabled the effective use of pre-lawsuit actions when aiming to suppress criticism of poor products or anti-consumer practices. In order to maintain their 'safe harbor' status, where the content-sharing platform is not held legally liable for copyright infringement by its users, the DMCA effectively requires the content platform to promptly comply with all DMCA takedown requests, and only spend time assessing the validity of the request once the allegedly offending content has already been removed from public view.
One of the first examples of this to gain notoriety occurred in 2013; the game Day One: Garry's Incident received a highly negative review from reviewer TotalBiscuit, and responded by using a DMCA takedown to remove the video from public view on YouTube.
Major examples
- DCS sues Small YouTuber for accurate product review showing battery issues & misleading warranty