14 DAY TRIAL // Celebrities deal with online abuse on a daily basis, especially on social media. Whereas most choose to ignore trolls completely or to beat them at their own game, actor James Woods is turning to a judge to grant him justice against his virtual attacker.
And he also wants $10 million (€9.12 million) in damages, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
James Woods takes troll to court
The 68-year-old actor has filed papers in a Los Angeles Superior Court against a person using the Twitter handle Abe List (the account has been suspended since), whom, he argues, has been harassing him online since December 2014 with malicious comments and defamatory remarks meant to discredit him in the eyes of the fans and his industry peers.
Of the things Abe List has been tweeting about Woods, the papers note attributes like “joke,” “clown-boy,” “scum” and “ridiculous.” However, the Twitter user, be it male or female, completely crossed the line on July 15, when they responded to one of Woods’ tweets writing “cocaine addict James Woods still sniffing and spouting.”
According to the documents, James Woods was never a cocaine addict and Abe List had no reason to infer otherwise. By saying this publicly, Abe List spread falsehoods about Woods to his almost 3,000 followers, but also to Wooods’ own, totaling about 240,000.
“AL's reckless and malicious behavior, through the worldwide reach of the internet, has now jeopardized Woods' good name and reputation on an international scale,” the documents state. “AL, and anyone else using social media to propagate lies and do harm, should take note. They are not impervious to the law.”
Taking a stand
Woods estimates that the damage done to his reputation would be of about $10 million (€9.12 million), but he doesn’t explain how he came to this final figure. Neither does he say in the papers whether he had Abe List reported for abuse on Twitter, or if he tried to block the user before suing them.
In reality, Woods has a hard case to prove: first, he and his attorney would have to identify Abe List and then they would have to show malicious intent in the tweets, Woods being a public figure.
However, the lawsuit states its goal clearly: this is about taking a stand against online abuse, about showing other trolls that such behavior should never be tolerated.
As noted above, celebrities deal with it daily, but Woods seems to be saying that they shouldn’t. No one should be able to hide behind a computer to throw dirt at a public figure and not be called to suffer the consequences.