Madison Square Garden sued Wired over an article about a database with "gay tags." Lawyers call the lawsuit knowingly losing

Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. (which operates the famous arena in New York) decided to sue the magazine Wired and its two authors. The reason was Article about the company's secret database, where information about celebrity guests was entered, including their sexual orientation.

Madison Square Garden says the magazine tarnished the company's reputation and accused it of discriminating against the LGBT community.

What was the article about? Wired?

Journalists studied a leak from the arena's internal "talent database". The administration of the famous New York arena Madison Square Garden (MSG) was convicted of creating a large-scale system of digital surveillance of visitors. As journalists from Wired and 404 Media found out, the security service of the venue maintained a database in which VIP guests were categorized depending on their sexual orientation, gender identity and political loyalty to the owner of the arena.

"Madison Square Garden kept a list of gay celebrities."

Article title in Wired

Briefly about what happened:

• Hackers from the ShinyHunters group gained access to the internal MSG database, which contains almost 40 thousand records.
• Journalists found a separate category in the list «LGBTQIA», which included 93 celebrities.
• Each guest was assigned a "risk level" - from low to high. It depended on whether the person was critical of MSG owner James Dolan.
• This is not the first case: earlier it became known about the surveillance of a transgender fan, for whom an 18-page dossier was compiled with a record of every step, including going to the toilet.

The Panopticon on 34th Street. Madison Square Garden was accused of spying on LGBT guests: the company compiled detailed dossiers on them

Particular attention was drawn to the 93 entries marked with the abbreviation "LGBTQIA". This list includes such stars as Ricky Martin, singer Phoebe Bridgers and the transgender guitarist of the band Geese Emily Green. The document also mentions a rapper Ice Spice, who attended the wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, which took place in this arena; She was labeled as a low-risk "bisexual."

The company considered this a "false narrative" and said that the database is an ordinary CRM system (customer service platform), and not a "gay list" at all. In the lawsuit, MSG emphasizes that it actively supports the LGBTQ+ community, donates money to pride organizations, and its employees regularly participate in New York parades.

Does the lawsuit have a chance in court?

Legal experts are skeptical about the prospects of MSG. Firstly, all the facts set out in the article Wired — including the presence of columns with sexual orientation opposite the names — correspond to reality.

Secondly, the laws of the state of New York are extremely strict in defamation cases. The court evaluates the material as a whole, and not headings or wording taken out of context. The plaintiff will have to prove that the text directly imposed a false conclusion about discrimination on readers – it will be extremely difficult to prove this in this case.

According to observers, the lawsuit looks more like an attempt to publicly justify himself and drag an unpleasant discussion into the courts, rather than a real legal tool.

• Human rights activists believe that MSG's interest in LGBT people is systematic. Evan Greer, director of digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, notes, "They seem overly interested in queer and trans people on their platform."
• Madison Square Garden / MSG is a legendary mixed-use indoor sports and entertainment complex in New York City, located in Midtown, Manhattan, directly above Penn Station. Known as the "World's Most Famous Arena", it is home to two iconic sports clubs: New York Knicks (basketball, NBA) and New York Rangers (hockey, NHL).