[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

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No. 22-11270 ____________________

PROJECT VERITAS, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee.

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Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cv-01722-SCJ ____________________

Before BRANCH, BRASHER, and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges. USCA11 Case: 22-11270 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 11/07/2024 Page: 2 of 38

2 Opinion of the Court 22-11270

BRANCH, Circuit Judge: On February 11, 2021, Twitter 1 suspended from its platform Project Veritas (“Veritas”)—an investigative journalistic organization most well-known for its undercover reporting. Veritas’s suspension made headlines. On February 15, Ana Cabrera and Brian Stelter, Cable News Network’s (“CNN”) then- on-air talent, discussed Twitter’s ban of Veritas during a broadcast. Their discussion, and specifically comments made by Cabrera during their discussion, is the basis of this defamation lawsuit. Cabrera suggested on-air that Twitter banned Veritas for “promoting misinformation.” Veritas disagreed with this characterization and demanded correction, contending that Twitter banned Veritas for violating Twitter’s “publication of private information,” or “doxxing,” policy. When CNN refused to issue a retraction, Veritas sued for defamation. The district court granted CNN’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, finding that Cabrera’s statements were substantially true and thus not actionable under applicable New York defamation law. Veritas appealed. After careful review and with the benefit of oral argument, we conclude that Veritas plausibly alleged a defamation claim under New York law. And although the district court did not reach

1 “Since the events of this suit, Twitter has merged into X Corp. and is now

known as X.” Murthy v. Missouri, 144 S. Ct. 1972, 1982 n.1 (2024). “For the sake of clarity, we will refer to th[is] platform[] as Twitter,” as it was known during the events of this suit, id., and we refer to “tweets” rather than “posts.” USCA11 Case: 22-11270 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 11/07/2024 Page: 3 of 38

22-11270 Opinion of the Court 3

the issue, we also hold that Veritas plausibly alleged that the statements were published with actual malice, an additional requirement imposed by the First Amendment in a defamation suit involving public figures. 2 Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s decision and remand for further proceedings. I. Factual Background3 Veritas made a name for itself through undercover and whistleblower reporting that aims to “investigate[] and expose[] corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions.” It operated an active Twitter account until February 2021. On February 11, 2021, Veritas tweeted a video showing its reporters trying to interview Guy Rosen, then a F