Talk:Depp v. Heard

General bias in Reactions section

I think the Reactions section is biased towards Amber Heard. Some examples:

In the Livestream sub-section, a law professor and a journalist are quoted criticising the decision to livestream the trial. No alternative views are presented and the text does not attempt to explain or contextualise the decision to livestream.

In the Social-Media Coverage sub-section, the online reaction against Heard is criticised, with sources cited claiming it was the work of the alt-right and savvy PR amongst other things. It feels like the whole sub-section is just pulling quotes from various pro-Heard sources and stitching them together into an article. Rather than quoting a journalist claiming it to be the work of the alt-right, shouldn't Wikipedia be citing actual evidence (if any exists)? The reader is left with the impression that the online reaction against Heard is the work of nefarious forces rather than simply being many people sharing the same view about her credibility. Is Wikipedia not meant to be anything more than a collection of quotes from selected sources?

The same sub-section also says, "Legal commentators and Heard's attorneys suggested that, because the jury was not sequestered, the social-media coverage of the trial may have had an influence on the final verdict." This seems entirely pointless and unencyclopaedic speculation. Heard's attorneys are hardly reliable sources for such claims and the statement is so woolly anyway that I don't see the value in it, besides reinforcing the view that the verdict is somehow flawed. "Suggested that", "may have had"…it's basically unsubstantiated speculation. Lollapalooza4725 (talk) 10:26, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I think you're right about the livestream—we actually had a quote by Lynch saying the fact that the trial was so publicized was a good thing—it was really in the wrong subsection, so I moved it up to the livestream analysis.

As to the social-media coverage section: Wikipedia relies on reliable sources—it's not a Wikipedia editor's job to investigate a claim and determine its veracity—rather, it's a Wikipedia editor's job to find reliable sources discussing a top and, assuming the content is due weight and notable, include it. Further, the commentary section is, of course, commentary, but, notably, the social-media coverage section does also include some evidence (like the Vice/The Citizen study).--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 15:49, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I think we had the Judge's reasoning in the livestream section once to provide her reasoning behind the choice. Apparently it's gone. We should re-add it to provide context.

In relation to the Social Media section: WP:DUE applies. The major sources are pretty much unanimous in criticising the social media coverage of the event. So I think it's fairly treated. I would avoid however saying "Legal commentators and Heard's attorneys.." This gives the impression that this is a "one sided" and biased view, instead of the mainstream view. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 19:13, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I added the Heard's attorneys portion because another editor, I think rightly, pointed out that 2/3 of the sources used to support "legal commentators" were, in fact, Heard's attorneys, and describing Heard's attorneys as "legal commentators" isn't appropriate. I've added another source in the lede to mitigate that difference. That said, I don't actually think the conjunctive implies the view is biased, and I think it's probably worth stating that Heard's attorneys did make that argument--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 13:50, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

If Heard's attorneys are the majority of sources for that statement then it seems more appropriate to switch them round i.e. "Heard's attorneys and legal commentators…" Lollapalooza4725 (talk) 14:28, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't go that far—in the actual section discussing social-media coverage (i.e. not the lede), Paula Todd, Mary Anne Franks, and Carl Tobias all suggested that the failure to sequester the jury may have influenced the verdict.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 15:15, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

This is why I don’t think we should mention Heard’s lawyers.

Do we have any reputable legal commentator that thinks the verdict was NOT influenced at all? This is the majority view. The only one denying it is the juror that spoke publicly as far as I know. We could add what he said in the lead to balance it maybe? {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 23:08, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

The reason Lollapalooza thought Heard's lawyers should be emphasized is that the sentence in the lede that discussed it was chiefly cited to Heard's lawyers (there were 3 sources, 2 of which were Heard's lawyers). I've now changed that so that there are 4 sources, and of course the non-lede discussion has more citations.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 14:00, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I've amended these sentences accordingly. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 22:40, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I've reverted your edit that goes in the opposite direction of what we are discussing here. We are talking of removing the mention of Heard's lawyers, not giving it more prominence. Also the juror's comments have significant WP:BLPPRIMARY issues. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 23:34, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I'd second that reversion—to be clear, the lede used to have 2/3 sources refer to Heard's attorneys, even though the full section had a much more diverse array of sources. That was addressed, and there's no longer any need to make "Heard's attorneys" more prominent.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 23:52, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

@Gtoffoletto: you said above "We could add what he said in the lead to balance it maybe?" in reference to the juror's rebuttal of Amber Heard's legal team's assertion of the jury being influenced by social media. Examining the sources in the lead and the article section more closely, the claim clearly originated from Heard's lawyers. The Today source contains a video of a television interview Elaine Bredehoft gave on June 2. This is the original source for the claim. Vice and ABC News are the references used to source similar commentary from Paula Todd, Mary Anne Franks, Carl Tobias and someone named Sandra Radna, who are the only four people to repeat this claim. Both of these sources are dated the day following Bredehoft's interview. So the claim did indeed originate from Heard's legal team, per the sources in this article. The NPR source was published on June 15, and contains nothing but quotes from Heard's attorney from the aforementioned Today interview, and quotes from Heard's interview with Savannah Guthrie.

In the meantime, we have commentary from a juror specifically denying this claim. I recall that it was already explained to you on this page that if you want to include allegations of actual criminal wrongdoing on the part of the jury (i.e., not following their jury instructions), then much better sourcing is needed, and that it's WP:UNDUE WP:CHERRYPICKING to repeat the claim in the lead without also mentioning the specific denial from the jury. There are no "BLPPRIMARY" issues with the juror's refutation of the claim, unless you're claiming the juror somehow works for Deadline or any of the multitude of other sources cited in that article section? Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 20:49, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not following your second point at all. You're saying that because third-party commentators commented on the livestreaming (/social media and the potential affects) the day after Heard's attorneys did ... then you've decided that their analysis stemmed from Heard's legal team? ... You have to realize that's entirely OR, right? And your claim about how we can't include sources suggesting that jurors might have been influenced by social media is just nonsensical. If you really think that's a BLP issue (and to be clear, it's not), I'm happy to discuss the issue in a third-party dispute resolution forum. If you want to include the juror denial in the lede, by all means—it's a primary source, but it's fine to say that a juror denied that he and others on the jury were influenced by social media--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 00:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

To be frank @Jerome Frank Disciple: your constant edit warring on this article has become tiresome. There are three separate discussions here of you listing your multiple reverts. Now you're edit-warring over simple grammar fixes. It is not OR to highlight a date contained in one of the sources you've included. Per above, Bredehoft was the source of the commentary of the jury being influenced by social media (on June 2—a date found in the source). This was repeated the following day by other commentators, per sources you've included. The claim did indeed originate from Heard's legal team. If you want to claim the jury committed illegality by ignoring their jury instructions, you need a hell of a lot better sourcing than this. Stop edit warring. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 01:23, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

@Homeostasis07::

1. You said it was grammatically incorrect to start a sentence with "And", and you removed and. That was incorrect, as shown by the link I included in the edit summary or, if you will, a simple Google search. So that wasn't a "grammar fix".
2. To say that the claim originated from the legal team is to imply that the legal team was the source of the claim—that they somehow influenced the other commentators. In fact, your actual edit was more inflammatory, suggesting that the legal commentators were "repeating" the legal team's claims. That's absolutely WP:OR.
3. "If you want to claim"—no, that's not how Wikipedia works. I am not claiming anything. The statements in question are supported by reliable sources. What Wikipedia policy do you think suggests excluding the claims? BLP?--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 01:32, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

For the record, I've said nothing and have made no edit regarding the trial being livestreamed. The issue at hand is Heard's legal team being the source of the claim that the jury was influenced by social media. In the context of this trial, that claim constitutes legitimate illegality on the part of the jury. The jury were specifically forbidden to access social media during the duration of the trial; a juror has said the jury were not influenced by social media at all. This is the claim which you & Gtoffoletto have repeatedly included in the lead while removing the refutation from that same section. I would definitely welcome uninvolved input in this article at this point, because constant edit-warring from the pair of you is not helpful. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 01:35, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The "claim" is analysis supported by multiple legitimate legal commentators in reliable sources. As I said above, I have no problem in inserting one juror's denial that social media influenced him or the other jurors.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 01:39, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The "claim" originated from Heard's lawyers, and has been specifically refuted by the juror. Add the refutation back to the lead, or remove the claim from the lead altogether. You amending your comment above to justify your edit-warring really doesn't fill me with hope that you'll stop edit-warring. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 01:52, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

@Homeostasis07: The "claim" originated from Heard's lawyers unless you have reliable sources claiming this, this statement is your own WP:OR. has been specifically refuted by the juror this is a fact and is supported by reliable sources. However it doesn't mean much, of course they would say that wouldn't they? See Wikipedia:Mandy Rice-Davies applies. Also: a revert with a clear motivation isn't edit warring and I second @Jerome Frank Disciple's comments. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 10:45, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Going back, I'd actually just like to emphasize that the claim in the article text was even more explicit in terms of its original research than the "originated" claim offered here. The edit to the article said that legal commentators "repeated" the suggestion by Heard's legal team. That's even more plainly WP:OR.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 11:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

There's also WP:Mandy Rice-Davies does not apply, but most importantly the WP:DENIALS portion of the BLP policy, which says reliably sourced denials of claims should be included. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 20:47, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

And they are. So what are you proposing here exactly? {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 22:15, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Same thing you agreed to nearly two weeks ago: the juror's refutation be added to be lede. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 22:51, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

The lead currently states one juror denied this was the case {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 23:15, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality banner to the whole article

I see @Homeostasis07 has added the neutrality banner to the whole article citing this discussion: [1]. As we are just talking about minor points in the whole article here I do not think it is appropriate. What are exactly your issues with the entire article? I would remove it unless we have more consensus over widespread issues. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 10:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not really of the opinion that it's a neutrality issue either. As I understand, Homeostasis07, in effect, objects to the claim that the jury may have been influenced by external sources. He's therefore repeatedly tried to insert language in the article downplaying that claim, first here, which was reverted by you since it went against the talk consensus, and then here, when he, without any attribution, suggested that the third-party experts were "repeat[ing]" the criticisms of Heard's legal team. That's just plainly an inappropriate comment. I know there's some talk about including the one juror's denial, but that denial is (and was) already in the article—it's was in the comments by juror section. I moved it to the paragraph in question and added it to the lede. Having done so, I'm not satisfied that there's any neutrality issue that's been articulated. That said, assuming removal is appropriate, I think a user other than myself should remove the tag (at least at first), given that Homeostasis07 believes I'm edit warring with him.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 11:28, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Let's wait a bit and then I'll remove it unless someone can point out a list of actual issues with the article. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 11:39, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Response to Homeostasis07's accusation of pov pushing and edit warring

I was a little surprised that @Homeostasis07: accused me of pov pushing and edit warring. To be honest, I hadn't remembered many interactions with him—although I did thank him on his talk page when he reverted an edit I had made by mistake. I glanced through the article history, and, unless I've missed something, I hadn't reverted Homeostasis07 once—and it was as to the edits discussed here. And, as is relevant to this section, Homeostasis07 was first reverted by User: Gtoffoletto; I merely commented that I agreed with that decision. Then, Homeostasis07 then made separate edits, which I reverted for the reasons I detailed above. Still, I wanted to make a full response to the accusations.

Response

For background: In terms of new content, I've added very little to the article. For the most part, I've worked on addressing what I perceived to be organization and grammar issues, weasel words, and a few verifiability issues. I will concede that most of my edits have probably gone towards descriptions of those critical of the trial, but, as demonstrated by both this talk page and the article history, I have a fairly established record of editing and expanding on content on both sides. For example, when I noticed an issue with the quotation regarding saying the trial was a victory against cancel culture and a boon for male victims of abuse, I didn't erase the content for the misattribution—rather, by diving into the sources that were provided and searching for others, I expanded it (discussion here). I properly attributed the cancel culture line to Tomi Lahren, and I separately detailed points made by another author, Kellie Lynch (diff). I also once reverted Gtoffoletto when he removed some praise of the trial from the article (though I later agreed with him as to the removal when he explained that his basis for removal was specific to the lede, which I had missed). I can't guarantee that I've never removed substantive content from the article, but a quick look at the history will show that I've (1) worked on sourcing issues; (2) worked on expanding the substantive content, usually for clarity or organization purposes; and (3) reverted editors who remove content for, I think, faulty reasons. Homeostasis07's record is not quite the same. If Homeostasis07 has made any edits expanding on pro-Heard or anti-trial talking points, I have not seen them. But he has, many times, argued such commentary should be removed. He previously argued (in a discussion I was not involved in) that Michel Dauber's commentary should be removed because, according to his own determination, Dauber was not a neutral source. Gtoffoletto pointed out that his analysis was original research, and FormalDude called it a "ridiculous claim". He also argued we should remove the Vice/The Citizens study on the Daily Wire's expenditures on anti-Heard content. When I listed several other sources that reported on the Vice/The Citizens findings, he suggested that the only appropriate one to cite was a source that didn't include the monetary amount, for a reason that, once asked about, he never elaborated on. And, finally, here, he argued that commentary by a barrister who specializes in sexual violence shouldn't be included. The barrister, Christine Proudman, argued that the question of Heard's supposed mental illness—raised in court and well-commentated on by the press—was a pattern of "victims of domestic abuse are labelled with sexist diagnoses", and that the headlines and accusations both stigmatized people with mental health and undermined the credibility of victims who come forward. [2] Homeostasis07 called this view "fringe", despite the fact that Proudman was neither the first or, by far, the only commentator to express it. [3] [4] [5].

In short: I think I've consistently adhered and demonstrated by commitment to NPOV. I've also had productive conversations with editors who I may, at first, disagree with, and reached compromises. Even when I have reverted editors, where possible, I've tried to propose a compromise version of the text rather than performing a full revert (e.g., [6]), and, on other occasions, I've often gone to the talk page to fully explain why I've made a reversion rather than just reverting and walking away (in addition to this section, see, e.g., here). I've absolutely made mistakes, this is a contentious subject and it can be easy to feel defensive in recurring discussions, but I don't think either of Homeostasis07's accusations have merit.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 14:43, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Let's not blow this out of proportion. I think the accusations are exaggerated. Let's all just take a deep breath here and find a compromise if one is needed. Unnecessary accusations are not helpful to building an encyclopaedia. Let's just stick to good old reliable sources WP:RS and avoid WP:OR. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 11:43, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! But given that I'm respecting the accusation enough to avoid an edit Homeostasis07 would consider out of line (e.g. deleting the npov tag), I wanted to also respond to the claims--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 11:49, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I see three separate violations of 3RR by Jerome this month. April 24: 01:43, 01:44, 01:52 and 01:53. April 21: 15:22, 15:27, 15:51 and 15:54. April 1: 21:31, 22:01 and 22:03. Despite both of you (Jerome: "If you want to include the juror denial in the lede, by all means—it's a primary source, but it's fine to say that a juror denied that he and others on the jury were influenced by social media" and Gtoffoletto: "We could add what he said in the lead to balance it maybe?") agreeing that the juror's refutation could be included in the lede, you've both edit-warred over it. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 20:47, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are talking about... nobody has edit warred anything. I've just reviewed the diffs above and I'm not clear on what you think they show but that's definitely not an edit war by @Jerome Frank Disciple. Also the juror comments ARE in the lead. Maybe you should read the article before commenting on it. I think we can close this discussion here. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 23:27, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

LOL, yes Jerome finally added this to the lead two days ago, after weeks of edit warring about this and other things, and posting this insulting badfaith missive above. I wonder what the good folks at ANI would think of these multiple reverts in the space of several minutes, and whether these count as edit-warring. It shouldn't take this much effort and cause this much grief to add simple information to the lede, especially when the pair of you actually agreed with the content. This all speaks much more to your conduct here than mine. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 23:45, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

@Homeostasis07 take a deep breath and calm down. You are the only one here screaming and accusing people of "bad faith" and "edit warring" over trivial discussions. You were so intent on having a tantrum that you didn't even realise the changes to the article! I think you should have a good reread of WP:AGF. Let's end this waste of time here. Have a good day. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 08:42, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

@Homeostasis07— The fact that it took me multiple edits to do one revert doesn't actually mean I did multiple reverts. As 3RR says: "An edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes or manually reverses other editors' actions—whether in whole or in part—counts as a revert." (bold added). I don't actually think further discussion of this is necessary; I've always said we could include the juror comment in the lede, if you wanted it there, and I eventually added it myself, so, as I see it, there's no continuing issue. If you'd like to go to ANI, of course feel free. In case you do find it helpful or desire an explanation, I've included an explanation of my edits below (and the logic, I think, clarifies why exactly a series of consecutive edits can count as a single revert), but as far as I'm concerned we can all move on and get back to improving the article.

Response

Why did it take me a series of edits on the occasions you cited? Because I was trying to be narrow in what I reverted and preserve as much of the edit as I could. In your case (and I'm glad you agree that I've reverted only one of your edits), I first tried to revert just one paragraph by copying and pasting that paragraph from the version prior to your edit. Then I realize you had—for whatever reason—subbed out the NBC source for the WaPo article, so my edit resulted in a broken ref. My second edit fixed that. You also accidentally left a space before the start of a new paragraph that began "The letter", which I fixed with my third edit—feel free to hit control F and find that in the version before I changed it back. It's in the social-media-coverage section.

Best, --Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 12:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Witness lists

Hello! I am ... tentatively ... planning on reworking the trial section. I'm hopeful I can find a summary of the trial, particularly in a source like a law review (though trials are rarely recounted in law-review articles). It's a pet peeve of mine when articles on trials include day-by-day, witness-by-witness descriptions (as I don't think such a description comports with summary style, and, unfortunately, many high-profile trials are described in that fashion on Wikipedia—mostly because it's easy to find day-by-day reports by the media sources covering those high-profile trials. Here, somewhat surprisingly, there's ... no real description of the trial? Which should obviously change, but the trick will be summarizing it.

Anyways, before I start ... I was actually wondering whether the witness list is appropriate under WP:BLPNAME. I've generally been of the opinion that its fine to include the names of already notable witnesses, particularly relevant witnesses, and trial experts (experts are hired and voluntarily insert themselves into the event), but I'm not sure every witness's name should be included. Fact witnesses can be subpoenaed and frequently (though, to be clear, nowhere near always) not actually interested in testifying. I'm also fairly comfortable in saying that a prose description of the trial wouldn't require the names of most of these witnesses—you could say, for example, "the general manager of the Eastern Columbia Building" without identifying the person.--Jerome Frank Disciple 14:22, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

The majority of people named in "coverage" are literal whos

Who wrote that part? Quoting unkown news sites? tweets? What? Usually when you want to talk about coverage you quote a juror or a profesional lawyer or an official news sites, not a tumblr blog. 2800:A4:31B2:B000:758A:57F8:99BE:FE78 (talk) 10:53, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Which source uses a Tumblr blog? Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 20:24, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Spoofs/Parodies - Start a tab?

In the new movie "Fall Guy" with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, Depp and Heard's relationship was referenced in the film, which was picked up by several reliable media outlets: The Cut, Hollywood Reporter, The Independent, and People . Two characters got in a fight in a trailer and a character commented "Looks like Johnny and Amber were in here".

I noticed there's a section on this article about media coverage that are adapting this case (ex: true crime shows, podcasts covering the case, books), but there is nothing about spoofs or references in other media. Given how culturally significant this was, I wonder if it is time to add a 'Media representation' tab to specifically mention non-adaptation sources? I know SNL spoofed the case, which is not referenced in this article but shows how notable this court case was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8R3EXXlKxg&pp=ygUQaGVhcmQgdiBkZXBwIHNubA%3D%3D

I'm sure people have other examples. Anyone have opinions on if I should add these two joke/comedy references in other media under the 'Media Coverage' tab and note that they are references/spoofs, or should a new tab be created? Squiddyonwiki (talk) 02:32, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

False allegations of sex crimes category and the Podcast section

I think the category False allegations of sex crimes should be added to the article, since the jury found the allegations sexual violence to be false. There's also a WP:RSUW issue with the podcast section, with allegations about Saudi-Depp conspiracy to defame Heard taken at face value based on one podcast episode. Abu Wan previously reverted shortening the podcast section by claiming that the episodes establish a clear attribution, even though the podcast host himself says that "I think it's just very, very difficult to establish attribution in cases of online manipulation. Even in cases where you're absolutely sure these bots are working in unison and working in coordination, you don't have access to the IP addresses. Even if you did, it might not show you who commissioned it... It's really tough." [7]

I think shortening the podcast section is in order, and rewording that these are not undisputed findings but allegations.

--Rusentaja (talk) 18:12, 8 August 2024 (UTC)