Vibe Libel: Court Shushes Quiet On Set’s Motion to Dismiss

Is there such a thing as defamation by vibes? A Los Angeles court is allowing disgraced Nickelodeon television producer Dan Schneider to establish that smoke always implies fire.

Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV premiered in March 2024 to rave reviews and instant internet virality. The docuseries covered the “untold story of the toxic world behind 90s and 2000s kids’ TV.” Prominently (and not-so-favorably) featured in this investigation was Schneider, the hitmaker behind The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, and iCarly.

The docuseries cast Schneider as a toxic, emotionally abusive boss who sexualized children on screen with risqué jokes. It also identified multiple child sex offenders who were employed on his shows, one of whom wound up pleading no contest to sexually abusing child star Drake Bell.

In response, Schneider issued an apology via a YouTube interview. While he acknowledged poor leadership, he denied sexualizing children (“Every one of those jokes was written for a kid audience”) or knowingly exposing them to danger. He subsequently sued, alleging that he was falsely depicted as a sexual abuser.  

Suing Between the Lines

Successful defamation claims ordinarily require the plaintiff to identify a false statement, yet Schneider does not contest the facts. Instead, he alleges that the series falsely implied that he sexually abused children. Indeed, it’s hard to watch the program without suspecting as much, though the docuseries pointedly differentiates Schneider from the confirmed pedophiles who worked at Nickelodeon with him.

Under the theory of defamation by implication, entirely factual material can defame based on what the facts imply. It’s the legal equivalent of The Duck Test: “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” Only here, instead of swimming, and quacking, the duck is up to nefarious activity.

Defamation by implication is very difficult to prove, though not impossible. For instance, a Tennessee newspaper once wrote that a woman shot her husband when she “found” him with a neighbor, potentially implying the two were caught in flagrante delicto. In reality, the husband and neighbor were sitting in the living room. The neighbor brought suit, arguing that the article defamed her as promiscuous. The Supreme Court of Tennessee acknowledged the literal accuracy of the facts but nonetheless found that “[t]he publication of the complete facts could not conceivably have led the reader to conclude that [the husband and neighbor] had an adulterous relationship.”[1]

Quack On

While Schneider cannot point to any similarly loose language, his Complaint draws connections between the narration of the episodes and images of actual child abusers flashed on the screen, arguing “the voiceovers and graphics in Quiet on Set and its trailer, juxtaposed or edited with the visual depictions, are purposefully and intentionally defamatory in that they falsely and repeatedly state or imply that Schneider is a child sexual abuser and committed crimes in this regard—and have been interpreted as such by countless average, ordinary or reasonable viewers.”[2]  

That was good enough for Judge Ashfaq G. Chowdhury of the Los Angeles Superior Court, who denied the docuseries producers’ Motion to Dismiss. Chowdhury held that a reasonable viewer might conclude that the docuseries “makes damning implications about [Schneider’s] conduct.”[3]

Yet if viewers came away from the docuseries thinking Schneider was himself a sexual abuser, that is pure surmise. Therefore, best understood as a matter of opinion – and protected by the First Amendment. The court should have instead looked at this case as an opinion based on disclosed facts, a doctrine which protects reasonable and unreasonable conclusions alike, so long as the speaker accurately communicates the facts they are relying upon.

Schneider will have his work cut out for him persuading a judge (or jury) that the producers acted unreasonably. But in denying the Motion to Dismiss, the Court is creating a new category of defamation: libel by vibes. That’s nothing to keep quiet about.

 
Endnotes

[1] Memphis Pub’g Co. v. Nichols, 569 S.W.2d 412, 420 (Ten. 1978).

[2] Compl. at ¶ 1, Schneider v. Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc., 24NNCV01328 (Ca. Sup. Ct. Nov. 22, 2024).

[3] Minute Order at 9, Schneider v. Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc., 24NNCV01328 (Ca. Sup. Ct. Nov. 22, 2024).