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Hasan Piker Sues Scott Jennings for $72.5M Over Defamation
· Confirmed
In Short: Progressive Twitch influencer Hasan Piker filed a $72.5 million defamation lawsuit against CNN commentator Scott Jennings, alleging Jennings falsely accused him of advocating for the lynching of Black Americans.
Progressive Twitch influencer Hasan Piker filed a $72.5 million defamation lawsuit against CNN commentator Scott Jennings in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
The lawsuit stems from an Aug. 11 episode of Jennings' show, where Jennings aired a manipulated video of Piker from a 2024 livestream, allegedly making it appear as if Piker had endorsed racial violence.
Piker claims Jennings knowingly misrepresented sarcastic comments he made during his livestreams to make it seem as if Piker supported lynchings.
According to the lawsuit, Piker sarcastically said, 'We need more Klansmen, okay. Can we go back to a better time when lynchings were happening?' during a stream mocking a Black conservative commentator’s statement.
Piker’s complaint states that Jennings omitted the words 'he said,' which introduced Piker’s caricature of the commentator he was criticizing, and added a made-up quotation that Piker never uttered.
The lawsuit seeks $27.5 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages.
Piker, who has over 3.1 million Twitch followers, 2 million YouTube subscribers, and roughly 1.9 million followers on Instagram, argues that Jennings’ actions damaged his reputation and jeopardized his streaming income and sponsorship opportunities.
Piker’s attorneys allege that Jennings ignored an earlier request for a retraction and that the accusations harmed Piker’s reputation.
The lawsuit focuses on an August episode of Salem Media’s The Scott Jennings Show, during which Jennings played a video of Piker and accused him of 'calling for Black voters to be lynched.'
Piker’s complaint notes that the clip was from a stream mocking a Black conservative commentator’s statement that 'woke' district attorneys were harming Black Americans.
Piker’s lawyers argue that Jennings’ actions were deliberate and defamatory, and that the law of defamation matters now more than ever in the age of artificial intelligence and sophisticated digital editing.
Jennings told listeners that Piker was 'out there calling for Black voters to be lynched' and had a 'plan of returning our country to lynchings.'
What this adds
Piker’s lawsuit adds to the ongoing debate over the use of manipulated videos and the legal consequences of defamation in the digital age.
Piker’s attorneys argue that Jennings’ actions were deliberate and defamatory, and that the law of defamation matters now more than ever in the age of artificial intelligence and sophisticated digital editing.
Background
Progressive Twitch influencer Hasan Piker filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN commentator Scott Jennings, alleging Jennings falsely accused him of advocating for the lynching of Black Americans.
What's confirmed
- The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., concerns an Aug. 11 episode of "The Scott Jennings Show."
- Progressive Twitch influencer Hasan Piker filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN commentator Scott Jennings on Tuesday, alleging Jennings falsely accused Piker of advocating for the lynching of Black Americans.
- “Mr. Jennings did not merely mischaracterize something Mr. Piker said,” the complaint says.
What's still developing
- 29, 2024, YouTube debate between two Black political commentators — one liberal, the other conservative — that Piker was reacting too.
- “A full review of Piker’s unedited remarks confirms Jennings falsely claimed Piker said he was in favor of bringing back lynchings,” the complaint states, referring to findings from Snopes, an independent fact-checker that looked into the incident.
- While Piker has since apologized for those statements and argued over their context, his rhetoric has nonetheless become a common line of questioning for candidates he supports.
- The clip in question is allegedly a “heavily edited” 42-second video from a 2024 Twitch broadcast of Piker’s where he “sarcastically” mocked a commentator’s criminal justice arguments and wasn’t expressing his own views, according to Piker.
- In a move sure to harden ideological underpinnings and supporters of two provocative pundits in our divided America, Piker points out the edited and apparently fake clips came from a two year old segment where the influential Twitch star was actually mocking racism, not advocating for it — and Jennings must have known it.
- Bro trying to quote Supreme Court precedents like he knows what he’s talking about when he’s 100% wrong.
- If piker wins he’ll be sued for the same thing by at least 15 other people and lose each time.
- “There is something especially disgraceful about exploiting this country’s history of racial terror to destroy another man’s reputation,” Watkins said.
- In an August podcast, Jennings played clips of Piker from 2024 when he was reacting to a debate between two Black political commentators, one in which the Twitch streamer sarcastically said “I want to go back to lynching” to mock nostalgia for an era before the civil rights movement.
- “I don’t think you should be able to get away with lying like this, and if I don’t put a stop to it, they’re going to continue maliciously defaming others as they have done so this entire time,” he said.
- “By falsely accusing Mr. Piker of calling for the lynching of Black voters, Mr. Jennings portrayed him as advocating lethal racial violence — conduct so inherently reprehensible that the accusation tends to expose Mr. Piker to public hatred, contempt and disgrace,” Piker said.