The meteoric rise of the 'juice' channels: are they free to spread every bit of gossip?

With the rapid development of the media landscape and the democratisation of media, the latest innovation in gossip journalism has arrived: the ‘juice’ channel. Along with a great deal of juice, this new phenomenon brings its share of problems. Where the old-school gossip magazines still adhered reasonably well, up to a point, to journalistic principles such as hearing both sides, that is far less of a given for juice channels. What exactly are juice channels, can they be silenced, and can you do anything about one if you are the subject of the juice?

What is a juice channel?

Juice channels, or gossip channels, are channels on YouTube or Instagram where the latest rumours, often about Dutch celebrities, are discussed. No two juice channels are the same; as media outlets they are anything but homogeneous. Each channel has its own colour, flavour and style. Many juice channels turn out to have a ‘moralistic’ purpose, such as exposing wrongdoing that the ’traditional media’ do not dare to touch. The traditional media pick up that juice where there is reason to. That many people find the juice highly entertaining is clear enough from the popularity of the format. The best-known channels are Roddelpraat (250K subscribers on YouTube) and Life of Yvonne (465K followers on Instagram).

Are juice channels free to throw every bit of juice onto the internet?

Freedom of expression is a precious thing. Juice channels can invoke it too. That freedom has limits, however. In any given case, the channel’s right to freedom of expression will have to be weighed against the right to respect for the private life of the person who is the subject of the juice. Which right weighs more heavily depends on all the circumstances of the case, with the following playing an important role:

• Are the allegations supported by the available factual material? As will appear below from the discussion of the case against Yvonne Coldeweijer, it is not enough that the juice was whispered by an anonymous source.
• The seriousness, for society, of the wrongdoing the publication seeks to expose. This means that where something is a purely private matter, a juice channel may not simply bring it out. Where it is something that concerns society too, and the suspicion finds sufficient support in the facts, publication will be permissible.
• The nature of the published suspicions and the seriousness of the expected consequences for the person they concern. The greater the consequences, the more carefully one must proceed.
• How the suspicion is framed. This means, for instance, that something cannot be presented as fact where there is very little evidence for it, or only anonymous evidence.
• How well known the person concerned is. As a general rule: the more prominent you are, the more you have to put up with.
• Has the other side been heard? It is also taken into account whether the person concerned had the opportunity to respond and whether that response was incorporated into the publication.

What can you do if you are the subject of the juice?

If you become the subject of a juice channel and you believe your right to privacy has been infringed (see the test above), there are two routes open to you: a criminal one and a civil one.

Criminal law: filing a report

You can report the matter to the police as insult or criminal defamation. The public prosecutor then decides whether to prosecute. Where a prosecutor decides not to, there is the possibility of complaining to the court of appeal, which can then decide that the prosecutor must prosecute after all.

The advantage of filing a report is that it is a relatively accessible way of intervening, because you can do it yourself. What is more, unlike proceedings (see below), a report is not public. That can be an advantage in some cases, because you do not give the juice an additional platform. The disadvantage is that it is uncertain whether the Public Prosecution Service will prosecute. And even where it does, the process can take a very long time.

Civil law: sending a cease-and-desist letter and, if necessary, going to court

Another possibility is to claim damages and a rectification on the basis of tort. That starts with a cease-and-desist letter. In the letter you can demand that the untrue juice be removed from the channel, and you can also demand that the inaccuracies be put right by way of a rectification.

Where the juice channel does not comply with the demand, you can issue a summons against the channel and its host or hosts. Since it is important that the untruths are corrected as quickly as possible, interim injunction proceedings will then have to be started. In such a case the court gives judgment at (very) short notice.

The advantage of this civil route is that you can act quickly. The disadvantage is that it is considerably more costly than filing a report, because a lawyer will have to be instructed. A further disadvantage can be that the proceedings themselves generate a great deal of media attention, so that the juice reaches a wider audience.

Recent proceedings against the juice channels Roddelpraat and Life of Yvonne

That not everyone puts up with everything from the kings and queens of gossip is clear from the two cases brought last month against Roddelpraat and Yvonne Coldeweijer.

Roddelpraat claimed to be exposing wrongdoing

The case against Roddelpraat is interesting because, besides concerning freedom of expression, it also touches on copyright. It involved a diss track recorded by the singer Famke Louise. Roddelpraat got hold of it and then played it in an episode at the end of January 2022. From the content of that diss track, the presenters of Roddelpraat, Jan Roos and Dennis Schouten, wrongly concluded that Louise was seeking to expose that her former manager Ali B. had abused and assaulted her. Louise then instructed a lawyer to have the episode taken offline.

The trailer for the episode gave the impression that Roddelpraat had evidence of the abuse and assault of Louise by Ali B. Roos and Schouten defended themselves by arguing that the episode is presented as having a high ‘pub-talk’ content, but the court did not accept that. It held that they had made the statements without any factual basis.

Roos and Schouten also argued that they sought to expose wrongdoing, and that their statements were therefore permissible. The court did not accept that either. It held that they had too little evidence for such serious allegations.

Finally, it is important to be aware that the consequences of a publication or episode are always weighed in an action to stop or correct it. In the Roddelpraat case, the episode about Louise was viewed 1.5 million times on YouTube and provoked a great many negative reactions. That, together with the fact that the episode would remain available indefinitely, gave grounds for granting the rectification sought and ordering the episode to be taken offline.

Coldeweijer may keep her ‘spies’ anonymous; sharing ‘juice’ is journalism after all

Then there is the case against Coldeweijer of the juice channel Life of Yvonne. On 14 March 2022, in response to a post, Coldeweijer received a message from an anonymous source claiming that the singer Samantha Steenwijk had used illegal pills to lose weight. When Coldeweijer asked how the anonymous source knew this, the source said she knew the person who had sold the pills to Steenwijk. The following day the juice queen posted an episode on her YouTube channel in which she claimed to have evidence that Steenwijk was using illegal slimming pills.

After the episode was published, Steenwijk instructed a lawyer and demanded that Coldeweijer remove the video and post a rectification on her YouTube channel. Steenwijk also asked the court to order Coldeweijer to reveal her sources and to compensate the loss suffered. Coldeweijer was somewhat cooperative, in that she removed the video and the thumbnail promoting it the same day and declared herself willing to publish a rectification. No agreement was reached on the wording, however, and the case was therefore put before the court.

Faced with the threat of proceedings, Coldeweijer went back to her anonymous source to check whether what she had published was correct. The source referred her to another anonymous source, but that source could not produce evidence either that the pills had actually been sold to Steenwijk.

Disclosure of sources is almost never ordered for any kind of journalistic activity, which includes juice channels. In this case the court held that Coldeweijer did not have to reveal her source.

Coldeweijer had committed the same legal cardinal sin as Roddelpraat: she had presented the rumours as facts. At the hearing she explained that she is not an investigative journalist and merely relays ‘juice’. The court did not accept that. By presenting the rumours as fact and saying she had evidence to prove it (which she did not), she acted unlawfully towards Steenwijk.

Coldeweijer further defended herself by arguing that she presents her episodes with a large dose of irony, and that her audience takes her juice with a pinch of salt. The court did not agree with that either. It found the tone more indignant than ironic.

The damages sought by Steenwijk were refused. The rectification was granted.

Conclusion

Juice channels practise journalism too. They are therefore bound by the same duties as all other journalists. Juice may not be spread without restraint. Juice, too, must be supported by facts. The other side of the coin is that juice channels also enjoy protection of their sources.

Both Roddelpraat and Coldeweijer presented their juice as fact. Had they simply presented it as rumour, their cases might well have turned out differently.

(c) Nick van Ormondt - Wessels Management - used under the terms of the CC BY-SA 3.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

In collaboration with: Luis Hernandez