After insulting his ex-girlfriend’s dad, a 29-year-old Spanish Youtuber is now legally required to read his defamation sentence on his channel every week for a month.
Dallas Review, whose legal name is Daniel Santomé, was sued after he posted a Youtube video talking about his ex-girlfriend’s father on his channel, which has 10.9 million subscribers.
Santomé posted a series of nine videos calling the father an “abuser”, an “aggressor that’s full of ****,” and a “sick coward who’s messed up in the head.” He also emphasised that the father hits “defenceless women,” and more specifically, his own daughter.
In the court hearing, Santomé defended his comments, arguing that they should be protected by his freedom of speech. However, the judge disagreed, saying that Santomé’s “social relevance” and platform of “thousands of adolescents” gave his insults a higher degree of importance.
The judge wrote that it’s “hard to believe that anyone with an average level of intelligence could think that by using freedom of speech as an excuse they could say all of these insults, which are recognised as insults by the RAE [Royal Spanish Academy], freely on social media and believe that the target won’t feel attacked and that the system won’t respond.”
As part of his sentence, Santomé is required to post weekly Youtube videos throughout June 2023 denouncing his statements. He must also pay the father US$13,000.
Santomé has since taken to his channel to call his sentence an “injustice”. He intends on appealing the ruling and has asked his fans to help him cover his legal costs.
In the meantime, his ex-girlfriend, Maria Rubio, better known by her channel name, Miare’s Project, celebrates her family’s victory.
She posted a statement on Twitter saying, “We won another one. To all the creators who have received insults and been harassed by this person or other toxic people, I want to say: It’s time to stop putting your head down and being scared of them, damn it. Be brave like my family has been. And you’re welcome for paving the way.”
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