So today I did something I literally could not have imagined I would ever do. Today I filed a defamation action. Let's call it clickbait defamation action against the New York Times. Here's the story. About a month ago I posted an essay on Medium about the MIT Media Lab taking money from Jeffrey Epstein. It was a long essay. It was a complicated essay. It was a very personal essay. Yet it takes just a single passage from that post making a point I repeated again and again to demonstrate the defamation that is here. Near the end of that post I wrote this. Maybe you can take the money of a tax fraud if and only if anonymous, but the kind of pain triggered here means that that general rule should not apply here. Which is again why I said I believe it was a mistake to take this money even if anonymous. The essay created something of a stir. The number of reads was something like two orders of magnitude greater than my usual personal posts. And a day after it went up, Nelly Bulls from the New York Times asked if I do a Q&A about it. We spoke for about an hour. Then we spoke for about 20 minutes a couple days later as she fact checked the article with me. The next day her article was published. This was the title and lead. Quote, a Harvard professor doubles down if you take Epstein's money, do it in secret. It's hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard professor, has been trying. Now post statements should puzzle you. I just showed you where I had written that taking money from Epstein was a quote mistake. So then how could I be quote defending soliciting donations from Epstein? And in what sense could I be doubling down on something that I had explicitly said was wrong? Again, here are my words. It was a mistake to take this money, meaning Epstein's money, even if anonymous. When I saw the article I wrote Nelly Bulls, I was sure that it was something a headline editor had done. And I was sure that if I hinted, playfully and generously, she would get it fixed. So I was astonished when instead she doubled down as she wrote me in an email. In the interview, you explain your position, a ton unambiguously and clearly. You do not think this donation should be taken at all. That's there. Sure, it may be there, buried in the article, but the headline and the lead were the opposite of what I wrote. And then the business editor emailed to triple or quadruple down. I've lost count here. It seems clear to us that you did defend Mr. Eto's actions in soliciting money from Epstein and you did say that if a university is going to take money from someone like Epstein, it's better to do so anonymously. Yes, I did defend Eto against his being scapegoated for a mistake that he and MIT made together. But as I repeatedly said that Joey's, quote, actions in soliciting money from Epstein were a, quote, mistake I could not have been defending those actions. And whatever I said about a university taking money from, quote, someone like Epstein, I explicitly said, quote, I believe it was a mistake to take this money, money from Epstein, even if anonymous. Now look, I love the New York Times. It is in my view one of America's great institutions. It is an institution that we need, especially now, to thrive and grow. Especially now we need journalism that can make the complex more understandable. But this article isn't the New York Times. This is clickbait defamation. They knew the headline and lead were false. But rather than fix it, they double down. It's okay to lie upfront so long as you make up for it later in the story. And so then I should live with the consequences of their lie, being framed as one who would quote, double down, defending, taking money from a pedophile, just so they can sell more ads, hell, no. The New York Times should tell the truth because we all need the truth from the times. And though there are endless mistakes that I have made and should be held responsible for, this is not one of them. That is what this case will be about. Clickbait defamation. Whether or not it's in the DNA of the internet, it should be nowhere on the pages of the New York Times. Now no doubt this will be a costly and painful claim for me to establish. But for reasons that have been carved into my soul, I cannot leave this lie unchallenged.