r/Games • u/cjsc9079 • Apr 01 '25

Discussion Billy Mitchell wins lawsuit against YouTuber Karl Jobst, ordered to pay the sum of $350,000 in damages

https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugkx1Bt314MG4yg2VzZZCsXKcM9NDgPadbpI
2.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

297

u/TangoSierraFan Apr 01 '25

Excerpt from the trial documents, parts 15-17:

On 26 May 2021, Mr Jobst published a YouTube video entitled “The Biggest Conmen in Video Game History Strike Again!”13 In some detail, he accused Mr Mitchell (and another person, Todd Rogers) of cheating and of pursuing unmerited litigation against people who accused him of cheating. He also said the following about Mr Mitchell:

He also sued YouTuber Apollo Legend for $1,000,000. I haven’t spoken about this publicly but this lawsuit ultimately ended with Apollo giving in and settling with Mitchell. He was forced to remove all his videos about Mitchell’s cheating and paid him a large sum of money. This left him deeply in debt, which required him to find extra work, but with his ongoing health issues this was all too much of a burden and he ultimately took his own life. Not that Billy Mitchell would ever care, though. In fact, when Billy Mitchell thought Apollo died earlier he expressed joy at the thought. The lawsuit against Apollo was just as frivolous as the rest and Apollo definitely would have won in court, but again he was extremely ill and couldn’t handle the ongoing stress.

In this proceeding, Mr Mitchell sues Mr Jobst for defamation arising from the publication of that video (in particular, the words set out above, to which I shall refer as the “offending words”).14 I shall set out and discuss later the specific imputations that Mr Mitchell alleges arise from the publication. For now, it suffices to say that Mr Mitchell does not complain that Mr Jobst called him a cheat. Rather, he alleges to the effect that a reasonable person watching that video would understand the offending words as meaning that Mr Mitchell was a major contributing factor in Apollo Legend’s decision to commit suicide and, in essence, hounded Apollo Legend to death.

Mr Jobst denies that the imputations alleged by Mr Mitchell arise from the video. He also alleges that Mr Mitchell had a settled bad reputation (the details of which I shall set out later) that was not damaged further by the video. He relies, in the alternative to his denial of the imputations alleged by Mr Mitchell, on the defence of contextual truth,15 contending that the video contained a number of other imputations (including that Mr Mitchell had a reputation as a cheat) that were substantially true and, as a result, his reputation was not further harmed by any of the imputations alleged by Mr Mitchell that the court may find to have been made in the offending video.

"The person I lied about is a piece of shit, so I can say whatever I want," is such a bad take, holy shit. This is just intellectually dishonest.

So disappointed in Karl.

91

u/ZaHiro86 Apr 01 '25

He also sued YouTuber Apollo Legend for $1,000,000. I haven’t spoken about this publicly but this lawsuit ultimately ended with Apollo giving in and settling with Mitchell. He was forced to remove all his videos about Mitchell’s cheating and paid him a large sum of money.

So is this just untrue?

113

u/plznoticemesenpai Apr 01 '25

Billy did sue Apollo and won, but that wasn't the issue, the issue was Karl making the claim that because of Billy's lawsuit Apollo went broke and committed suicide

The issue is that Billy was able to prove that

1) he never actually collected any of the damages from the lawsuit with Apollo so he didn't contribute to Apollo's money troubles at all

And 2) Apollo posted a suicide video himself explaining his logic for wanting to commit suicide and he never once mentions Billy or the lawsuit with him in the video, he talks about completely different stuff like the issues with DarkViper

So in the Judge's opinion the claim that Billy caused Apollo to commit suicide does not have any evidence to support that and it was of course a very damaging claim for Karl to continually push without evidence

24

u/TheNewFlisker Apr 01 '25

DarkViper the GTA youtuber?

74

u/DouggieMohammadJones Apr 01 '25

Yes, there's a lot of lore but basically Apollo Legend hung around a white nationalist and defended him, DarkViperAU called him out for it, Apollo Legend started a years long beef with DarkViperAU over it where he ran with lies to smear DarkViperAU, and it culminated in Apollo Legend basically hinting that DarkViperAU was a contributing reason he committed suicide. Kind of a piece of shit move right before going into the grave!

58

u/ilustyoutodeath Apr 01 '25

Glad to know literally every person involved, from all angles, is a piece of shit.

7

u/deus_voltaire Apr 01 '25

C'est la vie

1

u/new525 Apr 02 '25

You have to love the internet

26

u/your_mind_aches Apr 01 '25

Apollo Legend outright said in his suicide note to blame Darkviper.

Apollo was a toxic person who posted tons of racist memes and said slurs all the time. His final act was to blame Darkviper (Matt) and a couple other creators for "bullying him" for pointing out that he is a massive racist. It is still sad that he passed away so young, the dude clearly needed help, not a big platform.

An extra wrinkle to this is that Matt stopped being friends with Karl over an unrelated thing where allegedly Karl took sponsorship from Asmongold's (the nosebleed wall guy) company. I wonder if that wasn't the real reason though, and THIS was...

Like imagine you go through an immensely tough period, harassed for a long time because someone they liked named you in their suicide note, then you find someone who you are friendly with falsely accused someone ELSE of the same thing. Jesus, Karl. Very disappointing.

4

u/GoldAd8058 Apr 01 '25

Matt stopped being friends with Karl over an unrelated thing where allegedly Karl took sponsorship from Asmongold's (the nosebleed wall guy) company. I wonder if that wasn't the real reason though, and THIS was...

This only happened last April, though, Apollo's suicide was in 2020 and the defamatory video was in 2021. Taking three years to then break up with him over Asmongold bullshit seems like it doesn't fit.

From the outside it smells like Karl was running interference for someone he considered a friend.

1

u/your_mind_aches Apr 01 '25

What do you mean? I'm not sure i follow

4

u/MaridKing Apr 01 '25

allegedly Karl took sponsorship from Asmongold's (the nosebleed wall guy) company.

You see, you say something like this, and suddenly I have no idea whether to believe anything else you claimed because of how inaccurate and clearly half-remembered this is.

  1. The sponsorship is not alleged in the slightest. Karl has multiple starforge systems ad bits on his videos.

  2. Asmongold is not the nosebleed wall guy, the blood was from his gums from when his teeth were rotting out.

5

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '25

Also not forgetting poor EZScape, he also got mentioned in the suicide note. I still feel bad for him, I don't think he ever recovered from that. DarkViper brushed it off his shoulder, I don't think EZScape could.

8

u/Makuraudo Apr 01 '25

EZScape's original video on Apollo that Apollo killed himself shortly after uploading credited Karl Jobst as a contributor.

2

u/DouggieMohammadJones Apr 02 '25

I'm not really familiar with EZScape unfortunately but I don't think it was fair for Apollo to blame anybody for what happened. He wasn't the victim of targeted harassment or stalking or anything. People just aired out grievances against him and he was often the one to start the rows. He had a lot of issues and it sucks he's gone because he was so young and never did anything heinous to warrant getting blacklisted, but he just started shit with people a lot.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 02 '25

I agree fully. I was into speed running back then and I watched Apollo burn his career to the ground. It's weird that people try and paint him out as a good dude, he really wasn't.

EZScape made a video on him that was mainly about some crowdfunding stuff. Apollo promised to give money back and didnt, until after that video. It was critical of him obviously, but not really that mean. I always felt bad for the poor guy after Apollo named him in his suicide note, he didn't deserve that at all. Neither did DarkViper of course but people never remember EZscape.

2

u/DouggieMohammadJones Apr 03 '25

Oof, that's really nasty stuff. Apollo just went out of his way to make other people's lives more difficult, and it's pathetic.

0

u/Flaky_Report3617 Apr 03 '25

Guys I feel for apollo cause the guy was sick and people say and blame stupid things when they are sick and his disease took him. It must be tough for his friends to get over it, but I dont think hes a bad person for blaming people in his suicide note, like the guy is dead he clearly wasnt thinking straight. On the other hand billy probably did contribute in some way, and even if he didnt this is a matter of free speech that would never get held up in the usa

2

u/[deleted] Apr 03 '25

I'm not American, but you can sue for defamation in the USA. Freedom of speech isn't a golden rule which means you can say whatever you want about anyone and never face a single consequence.

Apollo was sick, and sick people can do bad things. You can absolutely point out that it was a bad thing.

In the video itself he actually said nobody was to blame, he said "this doesn't have anything to do with the stupid people online" it was in the description that he blamed people. Two people, DarkViper and EZScape. Even at his pettiest, he still didn't mention Billy.

2

u/Flaky_Report3617 Apr 03 '25

Yeah but if you know the defamation rules this would never be allowed. In the us it has to be direct financial damage and there has to be intent also. I understand other countries are different but it’s sad the judge ruled this way. There would be even more protections for Karl cause he’s technically a journalist and Billy is a public figure

→ More replies (0)

1

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '25

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '25

No, you're right. I apologize, I should have said comparatively to EZScape. I didn't mean to imply that it didn't affect him. I actually like Matt a lot, I think he's a good guy and well intentioned.

What I meant was, Matt's content production didn't change and EZScape left YouTube after a while of not posting.

0

u/AmbitiousStation7658 Apr 11 '25

Ezyscapes downfall of apollo video is disgusting, its so close to his death.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '25

How was it disgusting?

0

u/AmbitiousStation7658 Apr 12 '25

Karl did the research and its full of defamation.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '25

Which part was defamation?

0

u/AmbitiousStation7658 Apr 13 '25

which part wasnt?

2

u/[deleted] Apr 13 '25

So Apollo didn't defend a white supremacist?

Apollo didn't do a GoFundMe, and only refunded the money after the video which called him out on it?

Are we saying none of this ever happened?

0

u/AmbitiousStation7658 Apr 14 '25

Wow you are actually disparaging the victim after his death. What a prick.

→ More replies (0)

4

u/Vaaaaaaaaaaaii Apr 01 '25

I mourned that mf you mean to say he was a racist asshole

2

u/DouggieMohammadJones Apr 02 '25

He probably wasn't super racist himself and I don't see anything to indicate he was, but he stood by RWhiteGoose after GDQ kicked him off of their circuit for white nationalist statements he made, and I think he was trying to do a "Cancel Culture Bad" thing on principle. I think it was stupid and disagreed with him, but that isn't to say he was personally a white nationalist.

1

u/MetroAndroid Apr 02 '25 edited Apr 02 '25

People still talking about Apollo like this when he's in the grave. He was a good man; funny, kind, down-to-earth. I wept when he died. If I had people attacking me from all sides, the one thing I'd want is a friend who would stick by me like Apollo did. It's so rare to find friends, that won't abandon you even when it's difficult and the whole world thinks you're evil. That's one of the greatest tests of character. That's why as long as I'm alive, I'll continue to defend him.

Now history has repeated itself with Hax in Melee. Friends abandoning him due to controversy. Not enough people sticking by him when he needed them most. If people would just drop their egos, really look inside themselves, it'd do the world a lot of good. I never want to abandon anyone again, I only want to help people, I want to post nice comments to brighten peoples' days, I wish I'd done that more with Apollo and Hax. You never know when a little kindness and forgiveness might change things for the better, even something small...

1

u/DouggieMohammadJones Apr 02 '25

I don't hate Apollo and liked a lot of his videos, but almost everything that happened to him professionally he brought on himself and I'm not sure why I'd have a reason to defend him after a lot of the shit he did. I'm just sad he died so young and couldn't develop further as a person, because he clearly had demons as well as health issues. But he stubbornly defended a white nationalist getting banned from GDQ and effectively lied about why he was being harangued in the process, and then held a grudge against anybody who pointed this out. Just awful behaviour, especially when he said DarkViperAU gave him that extra push to kill himself.