TheWrap and Valnet have settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Valnet after a federal judge in California threw out the central claims that TheWrap defamed the digital media company in three 2025 articles that detailed the publisher’s blacklisting of freelance writers who complained about them, as well the owner’s past in the porn business.
U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld, Jr. dismissed the central claim of defamation against Valnet in April after TheWrap filed an anti-SLAAP motion, a legal defense which is designed to squash meritless lawsuits aimed at silencing public speech (it stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). The majority of the other claims were dismissed in a second anti-SLAPP ruling in July.
Claims remained against elements in two of the three articles, including a defamation claim by Valnet co-founder Hassan Youssef, but the parties chose to settle the matter in an agreement that was filed with the court last month.
“I am satisfied that we upheld our right to publish under the First Amendment,” said Wrap CEO and Editor in Chief Sharon Waxman.
Through their lawyer, Valnet declined to comment for this article. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Valnet, which owns websites ScreenRant, Collider, CBR and MovieWeb, sued TheWrap and reporter Umberto Gonzalez in April 2025 for $64.5 million in damages over an investigative article about “sweatshop” working conditions for its writers. Two later 2025 articles involving Valnet, one about allegations of sexual discrimination at the company and about layoffs at Valnet-owned Military.com, were added to the original lawsuit.
The March 2025 article “Valnet Blues: A Digital Media ‘Sweatshop’ Arises from Adult Content Origins” cited among former contributors a Collider writer who said the site maintains “a content mill, borderline like almost sweatshop-level,” where hundreds of writers are “constantly being pushed to write more, to do it quicker,” while editors face “pretty high level of quotas” despite being understaffed.
The article also cited and published a list of more than 400 “2025 Blacklisted Freelancers,” as the document is titled, blacklisting writers who have criticized Valnet or for conduct such as “creating drama.”
Regarding one libel claim, the court stated: “Valnet’s libel claim in Count 1 is dismissed with prejudice because the challenged statements are not about Valnet.” The libel claim was based on discussion of a Pornhub video involving an underage rape that was discussed in the article, but the judge said the article did not implicate Youssef. “The portion of Youssef’s libel claim in Count 1 based on the discussion of the Kalemba video is dismissed with prejudice because that discussion cannot bear the defamatory meaning Plaintiffs suggest,” the ruling stated.
In the second anti-SLAPP ruling, the judge stated that TheWrap accurately quoted a social media post by the Military.com news guild, and a claim against that was misplaced, stating: “Court need not determine whether the social media post’s characterization of Military.com was accurate (which Plaintiffs vigorously dispute) to determine whether Defendants’ September 2025 article accurately quoted the post … Plaintiffs’ relevance objections are misplaced, and their other arguments, including their objection to the consideration of publicly filed complaints, are meritless.”
The judge permitted a claim of defamation of Youssef to proceed over the article’s reference to a government seizure of a previous company’s assets.
The rejected claims included a demand for $30 million for Valnet and $1.5 million for Youssef for libel, which were dismissed.
In a related matter, Valnet also settled a class action lawsuit against the company led by former freelancer Daniel Quintiliano, who was cited in TheWrap’s March 2025 article. Valnet agreed to a $2 million settlement in a lawsuit accusing the company of misclassifying freelance writers and other content creators as independent contractors to avoid paying wages and benefits required under California law.
The lawsuit against TheWrap was filed last year on April 25 in a Delaware federal court and said the article damaged the reputations of Valnet and Youssef, claiming that inaccuracies and malicious intent caused actual and anticipated financial losses.
TheWrap was represented in the case by J.P. Jassy of the firm Jassy-Vick, a renowned First Amendment litigator. Valnet was represented by Doug Mirell of the firm Nolan Heimann.
