Brexit-loving businessman Arron Banks sues Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr over Vancouver TED talk

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      When U.K. reporter Carole Cadwalladr attacked the "gods of Silicon Valley in a TED talk in Vancouver in April, it generated tremendous attention in the tech world.

      Cadwalladr, who writes for the Guardian and the Observer, accused Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Twitter's Jack Dorsey of overseeing companies that have helped authoritarian politicians around the world retain power.

      "This technology that you have invented has been amazing but now it's a crime scene," Cadwalladr declared. "And you have the evidence. And it is not enough to say that you will do better in the future because to have any hope of stopping this from happening again, we have to know the truth."

      Since then, this TED talk has attracted more than 2.2 million page views on the organization's website.

      Now, Cadwalladr is facing a defamation suit not from the tech billionaires, but from British multimillionaire businessman Arron Banks.

      He's alleged that Cadwalladr falsely called him a "liar" during her TED talk.

      Banks, a vocal advocate for Britain's departure from the European Union, is suing her personally but he's not going after the organization that hosted the event.

      Cadwalladr has alleged on her Twitter feed that Banks is using the court as a "blunt tool against journalism" to try to silence her.

      None of the allegations by either side has been proven in court.

      Earlier this year, Channel 4 in the U.K. disclosed that companies with links to Banks provided significant sums of money to former U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage after he left the position.

      This information was broadcast while Farage's new Brexit party was running candidates in the European Parliament elections.

      Banks responded by calling it a "smear".

      Farage, a friend of Donald Trump's, was re-elected to the European Parliament in May.

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