Ron Schnell — Direct/Redirect/Recross/Voir Dire
485 linesMR. NADELHAFT: We call Ron Schnell, S-C-H-N-E-L-L
THE COURT: Thank you, sir.
MR. NADELHAFT: Uh-huh.
[SECTION HEADER]: Witness called on behalf of the defendant and counterclaim plaintiff, having been first duly sworn by the Clerk, testified as follows:
MR. NADELHAFT: Please introduce yourself to the jury.
RON SCHNELL: I'm Ron Schnell.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what is your current job title, • 16 Mr. Schnell?
RON SCHNELL: I'm a director at Berkeley Research I ,18 Group.
MR. NADELHAFT: And could you briefly describe your educational background since high school?
RON SCHNELL: I have a master's degree in computer science.
MR. NADELHAFT: Do you have an undergraduate degree?
RON SCHNELL: I do not.
MR. NADELHAFT: And can you explain to the jury why not?
RON SCHNELL: When I was a kid, there was a lot of publicity about me because I was a professor at NYU when I was 14. NYU actually offered me to go into their freshman class when I was 14, but I decided that I wanted to experience the social aspect of high school so I turned them down. But by the time I got to college, they skipped me from undergraduate to graduate.
MR. NADELHAFT: So when did you receive your master's degree from Syracuse University?
RON SCHNELL: It wasn't until 2008, actually.
MR. NADELHAFT: And why wasn't it until 2008?
RON SCHNELL: So because of my previous background while I was at Syracuse, including I did work at MIT in the artificial intelligence lab for the two founders of artificial intelligence, Patrick Winston and Marvin Minsky, I was immediately lured to MIT even while I was in graduate school. And eventually they offer you enough money where you have to take them up on it.
MR. NADELHAFT: So what -- so when you were lured away from Syracuse University, what did you do?
RON SCHNELL: I worked at Bell Labs on something called the Unix operating system. Unix is an operating system which is the core of the computer, what makes everything work. Microsoft Windows is an operating system. Mac OS is an operating system. You may have heard of Linux, which is, you know, Unix was the predecessor to Linux. So I worked on the kernel of the Unix operating system at Bell Labs.
MR. NADELHAFT: And when was that approximately, what year?
MR. NADELHAFT: And how long did you work at Bell Labs?
RON SCHNELL: Couple of years.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what did you do after Bell Labs?
RON SCHNELL: After that, I was lured away to IBM, so I worked at IBM on their version of the Unix operating system, which was called AIX, also I worked on the kernel and other programs working on the kernel.
MR. NADELHAFT: Could you just briefly explain what the kernel is?
RON SCHNELL: The kernel is the center of the operating system, so it actually controls the piece of software that controls the whole computer. So it gets down to the bit level, where it's actually -- really everything that goes on within the computer has to go through the kernel.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what did you do after IBM?
RON SCHNELL: After IBM, I founded a startup company.
MR. NADELHAFT: What was the name of that startup company?
RON SCHNELL: It was called Secure Online Systems.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what did Secure Online Systems do?
RON SCHNELL: It was a company that wrote software for mainframe computers running various versions of the Unix operating system.
MR. NADELHAFT: And were there any other investors in Secure Online Systems, Inc.?
RON SCHNELL: Yeah. My business partner on that was Sylvester Stallone.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what eventually happened to Secure Online Systems?
RON SCHNELL: Well, it was, as I said, a software product that ran on mainframe computers on Unix, and we actually completed the product and it ran very well. But mainframes running Unix kind of ceased to exist back then, so we had to shut it down.
MR. NADELHAFT: So what did you do after the company shut down?
RON SCHNELL: Then I went to work at Sun Microsystems, working on their version of Unix, which is called Solaris, also working on its kernel.
MR. NADELHAFT: And approximately how long were you there at Sun?
RON SCHNELL: Approximately five years.
MR. NADELHAFT: And did you also work for Driver Aces, Inc.?
RON SCHNELL: Right. Coincident with that, I also founded another startup called Driver Aces, and we wrote what are called device drivers to run on the Unix operating systems. A device driver actually teaches the computer how to talk to hardware devices, so also runs within the kernel.
MR. NADELHAFT: Have you founded any other startups?
RON SCHNELL: Yes.
MR. NADELHAFT: What was the other startup? What was at least one of the other startups?
RON SCHNELL: So the last startup I founded was called mailcall.com, M-A-I-L, and that was a startup that allowed you to read and manage your email on your cellular phone before there were smartphones. So a computerize voice would read you your email, and you could speak a reply into the phone or send it to a fax machine. Basically that you manage your email on the road.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what happened to mailcall.com?
RON SCHNELL: I sold that to a public company in 192000.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what did you do after that?
RON SCHNELL: After that, I ended up working at Equifax, one of the three credit bureaus in the United States, running software development for their Internet marketing division.
MR. NADELHAFT: And how long were you in that position?
RON SCHNELL: Until 2005.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what happened in 2005?
RON SCHNELL: In 2005 I was asked to run what's called a monitorship for the D.C. District Court for two cases, U.S. v. Microsoft and New York, et al. v. Microsoft, the two largest antitrust cases in U.S. history. So I was responsible for running that organization. I hired 93 people over six and a half years to perform that monitorship.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what type of work were you doing in that monitorship?
RON SCHNELL: Highly technical work, looking at all of Microsoft's documents and source code and things like that. I can't talk too much about it because of a protective order, but I had special master powers in that matter - in those matters.
MR. NADELHAFT: And you said you were in that position for six and a half years?
RON SCHNELL: Correct.
MR. NADELHAFT: So that takes us to about 2013; is that right?
RON SCHNELL: It was '11.
MR. NADELHAFT: 2011? Okay.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what did you do -- what did you do in 2011?
RON SCHNELL: In 2011 I didn't do much until 2013 Is when I took the role as the director at Berkeley Research Group.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. And that's your current I position, correct?
RON SCHNELL: Correct.
MR. NADELHAFT: What are your responsibilities at Berkeley Research Group?
RON SCHNELL: So I do all sorts of things. Generally I consult, I do software projects and manage software projects and architect them, but I also do things like this where I'm consulting in litigation and sometimes testifying in litigation.
MR. NADELHAFT: Have you taught any courses?
RON SCHNELL: Yes. I'm an adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what classes do you teach there?
RON SCHNELL: I teach computer security and the Unix operating system environment, although since COVID, I haven't been doing that.
MR. NADELHAFT: And have you published any scholarly articles?
RON SCHNELL: Yes. I have two published articles, one related to computer security and another related to antitrust enforcement using technology.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what experience do you have in I statistical or forensic analysis of social media?
RON SCHNELL: Bunch of the consulting work I've done involves analyzing data from social media. Most of them have been consulting for litigation, some of them are consulting for nonlitigation, yeah.
MR. NADELHAFT: And is that work both in civil and criminal matters?
RON SCHNELL: Yes.
MR. NADELHAFT: And could you describe the work just a bit more in terms of what you've performed regarding statistical or forensic analysis of social media?
RON SCHNELL: I can't tell about the specific cases because I haven't testified on them, and some of them are awaiting indictment, most likely. But in general it's really the same sort of stuff I've been doing here, analyzing data from the social networks.
MR. NADELHAFT: And on what social media platforms have you performed forensic analysis?
RON SCHNELL: All of the major ones.
MR. NADELHAFT: What are the major ones?
RON SCHNELL: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit.
MR. NADELHAFT: How much of your expert work is for plaintiffs versus work for defendants?
RON SCHNELL: Well, I don't consider myself working for either plaintiff or defendant. I take my role as an independent expert extremely seriously. But looking at whose counsel has hired me over the, you know, nine or so years I've been doing this, it's almost exactly equal.
MR. NADELHAFT: And how many times have you been a consulting expert?
RON SCHNELL: Including litigation, nonlitigation, hundreds.
MR. NADELHAFT: How many times have you been qualified in court, arbitration, or in sworn court testimony to provide expert testimony?
RON SCHNELL: Eight times.
MR. NADELHAFT: Have you ever been disqualified as an expert by a court?
RON SCHNELL: No.
MR. NADELHAFT: Do you believe that your testimony will be helpful in as siting the jury to understand the facts of this case?
RON SCHNELL: I do.
MR. NADELHAFT: Your Honor, at this time, I tender Mr. Schnell as an expert in the field of statistical and forensic analysis of social media.
THE COURT: Any objection?
MR. DENNISON: Your Honor, can we be heard?
THE COURT: Do you want to voir dire?
MR. DENNISON: Yes, I do.
THE COURT: Okay. You can voir dire.
MR. DENNISON: Thanks.
MR. DENNISON: Sir, my name is Wayne Dennison. Good afternoon.
RON SCHNELL: Good afternoon.
MR. DENNISON: You made, here, an analysis of certain tweets and hashtags, right?
RON SCHNELL: Yes.
MR. DENNISON: And you made no effort to connect those tweets and hashtags to the statements made by Adam Waldman?
MR. NADELHAFT: Objection.
THE COURT: I'll sustain the objection. The voir dire is just for his qualifications as an expert.
MR. DENNISON: Can we be heard, Your Honor?
THE COURT: If you want to come forward, that's fine.
MR. DENNISON: Thank you.
MR. DENNISON: Your Honor, this witness is subject to one of the motions in limine, and your ruling to this witness is that only evidence showing the nexus of damages may come in through this witness.
THE COURT: Right.
MR. DENNISON: And all I was trying to do is ask four questions to see if he actually has any damages nexus.
THE COURT: That doesn't have to do with his qualification, whether he's qualified as an expert or not. So if you don't have an objection to him qualifying as an expert, you'll have to cross-examine. I mean, you can object to if they go into any areas outside of damages.
MR. DENNISON: That's right. I was I just asking. My --
THE COURT: That's not what voir dire is for, though. Do you have any objection to moving him as an expert?
MR. DENNISON: No. Obviously he's qualified.
THE COURT: Well, that's where we're at right now.
MR. DENNISON: Okay.
THE COURT: Okay? If you want to ask something really statistical -- I'm sorry ...
MR. NADELHAFT: Statistical and forensic analysis of social media.
THE COURT: Forensic ...
MR. NADELHAFT: Analysis of social media.
THE COURT: Analysis of social media. Thank you so much.
MR. NADELHAFT: Thank you. So I can just start?
THE COURT: I'll ask him if he excepts him
THE COURT: All right. So, Mr. Dennison, do you have any objection to moving him in as an expert?
MR. DENNISON: No.
THE COURT: All right. Then I'll move him in as an expert in the statistical and forensic analysis of social media.
MR. NADELHAFT: Mr. Schnell, what were you asked to do in this matter?
RON SCHNELL: So I was asked to do several things. I used the official Twitter APis to bring in data over certain -- several different time spans, initially it was April of 2020 to January 2021, and analyzed various hashtags and things like I 5 that.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what is significant about April 2020?
RON SCHNELL: I understand that April 2020 is related to the alleged defamatory statements by Mr. Waldman.
MR. NADELHAFT: And you talked about APis. What does that mean?
RON SCHNELL: API stands for "application programming interface." That is a service that's provided by companies like Twitter so that professionals can write programs to query Twitter to ask for various things. In this case, I used two of their APis.
RON SCHNELL: Is One of them was called a search API, and that allows you to give search terms, and it will return all the tweets containing those search terms through a certain date range. The other one is called accounts API, and I use that, again for a certain date range, to return any tweet that contained that hashtag.
MR. NADELHAFT: And you just --
RON SCHNELL: And I should add that it may not be obvious why you need to do this, but if you just do a search on Twitter itself, it's not going to return everything. It's going to return a subset of what is out there. But using these APis, which you pay a lot of money for, they sort of guarantee that you'll - almost guarantee that you'll get everything.
MR. NADELHAFT: And you mentioned hashtags. I know a lot of people know what those are, but for those who don't, what's a hashtag?
RON SCHNELL: Well, hashtags are a function of Twitter. They're really just part of the text of a tweet or a profile, and it's convenient to put things in hashtags so that when somebody searches, they can search for a particular hashtag and it'll come up.
MR. NADELHAFT: And did you choose particular hashtags ' I IO to search for?
RON SCHNELL: I did.
MR. NADELHAFT: And how did you choose which hashtags to use?
RON SCHNELL: Well, initially I was looking for tweets that would be negative towards Ms. Heard. So I looked through tweets that were negative towards Ms. Heard, and I found that a supermajority of them were using one of four different hashtags.
MR. NADELHAFT: And so overall, what did your analysis find regarding negative hashtags about Ms. Heard from April 2020 until the end of January 2021?
RON SCHNELL: There were over 1,243,000 and change uses of those hashtags during that time frame you just mentioned.
MR. NADELHAFT: And did you perform an analysis of the negative hashtags from April 2020 until January of 2022?
RON SCHNELL: Yes, I did.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what was the result of that?
RON SCHNELL: There were over another million, so, you know, 2.38 million, I think.
MR. NADELHAFT: And how did you determine that the tweets were negative about Ms. Heard?
RON SCHNELL: Well, you know, I hadn't been asked that until later on in this, but I didn't think that that would be in controversy. I mean, some of these hashtags are pretty much rude, and it would really surprise me anyone would think that they wouldn't be negative towards Ms. Heard. But when I was asked about it later, I actually took a random sampling and looked at them and could not find any that were not negative toward Ms. Heard.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what was the random sampling that-----6-0- you used?
RON SCHNELL: I did two of them. They were a thousand each.
MR. NADELHAFT: And how did you determine which thousand tweets to use for review in each search?
RON SCHNELL: I wrote a program that truly selected them at random.
MR. NADELHAFT: And in your experience, is 2,000 tweets a meaningful sample?
RON SCHNELL: If they're chosen at random in this universe, yes.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. In addition to the four hashtags for Ms. Heard, did you review any other -- did you look at any other hashtags?
RON SCHNELL: I did.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what hashtag did -- what type of hashtag did you look for?
RON SCHNELL: I looked at what I found to be six hashtags that would be negative toward Mr. Depp.
MR. NADELHAFT: Michelle, can you put up Demonstrative 1, which is on the fifth page of Mr. -- of Attachment 4 of Mr. Schnell's expert designations.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. NADELHAFT: Mr. Schnell, did you create this chart?
RON SCHNELL: I did.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what data is this chart based on?
RON SCHNELL: This is based on the search API from Twitter, and it rolls up the number of tweets with the various hashtags by month of these two years, ! 19 yeah, three years.
MR. NADELHAFT: Your Honor, I would I like to make this a demonstrative, Schnell Demonstrative 1. Or do you want it to be a --
THE COURT: If I could get it one of ! the numbers since it's going to be part of the I record.
MR. NADELHAFT: Can we call it Schnell Demonstrative 1, and then I give you a number?
THE COURT: Well, the last number I have is 1837.
MR. NADELHAFT: Do we know if that's the last? How about we make it 1900? That way it's not -- can we just make it 1900?
THE COURT: That's perfect. 1900 it JS.
THE COURT: Any objection to the demonstrative?
MR. DENNISON: No, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. You can publish is that.
MR. NADELHAFT: And is this a chart you made, Mr. Schnell?
RON SCHNELL: It is.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. And the -- at the top here, ! there are hashtags that are in yellow.
MR. NADELHAFT: You see that?
RON SCHNELL: I do.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. And if we go all the way to the right -- well, first, let's scroll over to the left here. I apologize. You see in 2020, there's the months of June and July?
RON SCHNELL: I do.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. And what are these columns? First tell the jury what they represent.
RON SCHNELL: So each of these is the number of tweets with the hashtags - with the corresponding hashtags during that month.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. And if we look at the first one in yellow, you see that first hashtag, the fourth one over?
RON SCHNELL: I do.
MR. NADELHAFT: And are there any -- what does it show from 2018 to July of 2020?
RON SCHNELL: There were none.
MR. NADELHAFT: And then what happens in August of 2020?
RON SCHNELL: Well, there's a remarkable jump from July to August of 2020. It goes from zero to 1213,878.
MR. NADELHAFT: And if we scroll to the right, the last three hashtags which are highlighted show the difference between June and July, what did your analysis show?
RON SCHNELL: Well, you can see that June is about at its steady state. In July there's also a remarkable jump.
MR. NADELHAFT: And that's for all three of those hashtags?
RON SCHNELL: That's correct. "
MR. NADELHAFT: And the hashtags -- the hashtags that are in the blue are the ones related to Mr. Depp, correct?
RON SCHNELL: Correct.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. Oh, by the way, what is your understanding of when the last alleged defamatory statement was made by Mr. Depp through Mr. Waldman?
RON SCHNELL: My understanding is that it was the end of June of that year.
MR. NADELHAFT: Of 2020?
RON SCHNELL: Yes.
MR. NADELHAFT: Now, looking at the hashtags that are highlighted in blue for Mr. Depp for the months of November, December -- November and December of 2018 and January of 2019, what did your analysis -- what does your analysis show?
RON SCHNELL: I see a remarkable jump in November of 2018, and then it starts to - well, it goes way down in December of and January of '19.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. And do you know when Ms. Heard wrote the op-ed in this matter?
RON SCHNELL: My understanding, it was - is that it was December of 2018.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. And if we go to November of 2020 for the hashtags related to Mr. Depp, if you see Is the difference between October of 2020 and November of 2020, what do you see there?
RON SCHNELL: I also see a large jump from October to is November of 2020.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. If we look at the last hashtag ! I in blue that says "Johnny Depp is a wife beater," what does that show in terms -- what did your analysis find in terms of tweets with those I hashtags?
RON SCHNELL: Looks to me that also there are more hits prior to - well, little here and there, there are I single-digit ones, but prior to November of 2020, there are basically none and then it jumps up to over 2,000.
MR. NADELHAFT: And do you know what happened in November of 2020?
RON SCHNELL: My understanding is that's when the U.K trial ended.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay.
MR. NADELHAFT: We can take this down.
MR. NADELHAFT: And can you put up Demonstrative 2, which we'll make 1901, which we'll identify as Is 1901.
THE COURT: That's fine, 1901. Any objection?
MR. DENNISON: No, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. 1901 can be I published.
MR. NADELHAFT: And, Mr. Bania, what date is this chart based on?
MR. NADELHAFT: I did the same thing.
MR. NADELHAFT: Mr. Schnell, what data is this chart based on?
RON SCHNELL: This chart is based on the data we just looked at, but out until January of 2022, and it's just another way of displaying the numbers in graphical form so that we can see peaks and valleys.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what are the dotted lines?
RON SCHNELL: So if you look at the top, you can see that the dashed lines are the negative hashtags towards Ms. Heard and the solid ones are the negative hashtags towards Mr. Depp.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what is being shown here? In your analysis, what is being shown with the tweets related to Ms. Heard?
RON SCHNELL: Well, you can see that there's a huge spike in February of 2020, which I believe Mr. Waldman just testified that that's when he leaked an audiotape of some kind. There's also a notable remarkable spike in July of 2020, in November of 2020, and then in March of 2021.
MR. NADELHAFT: And the spike in February 2020, that came before the alleged defamatory statements, correct?
RON SCHNELL: Which one?
MR. NADELHAFT: Sorry. The spike in, yeah, February 2020.
RON SCHNELL: That is correct.
MR. NADELHAFT: And even though that spike came in before the alleged defamatory statements, even taking account for that spike, what time period has more negative tweets about Ms. Heard before or after April 2020?
RON SCHNELL: Right. So even taking into account this really large spike in February of 2020 and you look at from the beginning of 2018 until the beginning of 2022, there are a majority of the negative tweets are between April of 2020 through the beginning of 2022.
MR. NADELHAFT: And do you recall at your deposition being asked that a spike in negative hashtags occurring before April 8th, right before April 8th, 2020?
MR. DENNISON: Objection. Hearsay.
MR. NADELHAFT: I've asked about his attorney, I --
THE COURT: Overruled. Go ahead.
RON SCHNELL: I remember questions regarding particular dates, yes.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what is your understanding as to why there was more negative tweets in April 6th and April 7th than April 8th, 2020?
MR. DENNISON: Objection. Foundation.
MR. NADELHAFT: Was there more negative tweets on April 6th and April 7th than on April 8th, 2020 as it relates to Ms. Heard?
RON SCHNELL: Right. If you look at the day-by-day counts which I supplied to Mr. Depp, you can see that there's a spike that begins on April 6th and goes for a few days. So and April 6th is, it's my understanding, before what people are calling the alleged defamatory statements.
MR. NADELHAFT: And did you look at the tweets for April 6th and April 7th?
RON SCHNELL: I did.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what did you find?
RON SCHNELL: I found that there are Waldman statements that are the same as on the 8th on the 6th and the 7th, the Daily Mail on the 6th and Vanity Fair on the 7th.
MR. NADELHAFT: What terms were being used?
RON SCHNELL: Well, "Hoax" is certainly used in each of them. I think "abuse hoax" is used in one of them. I don't have it in front of me. But generally speaking it was that, and the 7th I "'"i ------,----------------:6"'.'.".0'.72::-::-- l 1 !
RON SCHNELL: ,3 I think was the same exact terms that were used in the one on the 8th. But the 6th may be slightly different, but it has the word "hoax."
MR. NADELHAFT: If we could, go to the second page of this demonstrative, what's being shown on the second page of the demonstrative?
RON SCHNELL: So this is generally- it's the same data as the first one, but I've removed one hashtag, the "justice for Johnny Depp" hashtag, because it kind of overwhelms all the others because there are so many of them. And by removing it, it sort of rescales the graphs and you can see the others much better. And even though they looked really tiny on the previous page, you can see that they're big numbers, you know, over a hundred thousand and stuff.
RON SCHNELL: So this really - this shows - and if you look between the two, you see the curve's the same, so it shows, like, a mathematical correlation between all the hashtags.
MR. NADELHAFT: What do you mean by "mathematical correlation"?
RON SCHNELL: They're correlated. You can see the numbers go up and down at the same place.
MR. NADELHAFT: So I'm understanding the hashtags are essentially going up and down at the same times?
RON SCHNELL: Correct.
MR. NADELHAFT: Thank you.
MR. NADELHAFT: And can we put up Demonstrative Exhibit 3?
THE COURT: 1902?
MR. NADELHAFT: 1902, yeah. Thank you.
THE COURT: All right. Any objection to 1902?
MR. DENNISON: Not as a demonstrative.
THE COURT: Okay. You can publish that.
MR. NADELHAFT: Mr. Schnell, did you create this chart?
RON SCHNELL: I did.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what does this chart show?
RON SCHNELL: So what I did was I took the data that I supplied to Mr. Depp, which was the original data from April of 2020 through January of 2021, and I searched it for certain key terms, hoax, fake, and fraud. That's what it's representing, the top part anyway.
MR. NADELHAFT: And the top part, if you look at the -- for hoax, fake, and fraud within the -- and this is within the negative hashtags towards Ms. Heard?
RON SCHNELL: Right. This is only searching through the ones that have one of these four hashtags in them.
MR. NADELHAFT: And if you look at the total -- oops, IO I'm putting that in black; let's clear that. You saw the line there. What's the total number of times it was used in the negative tweets, either hoax, fake, or fraud?
RON SCHNELL: 81,121.
MR. NADELHAFT: And did you perform any other searches on the data?
RON SCHNELL: Yes.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what searches did you perform?
RON SCHNELL: So I also looked in that same data for references to "Waldman" by itself or "Wald," and then followed by -- anything followed by or "mignonne," "mignon," depending how you want to pronounce, it's sort of a portmanteau of Waldman and filet mignon, I guess, and looked for those in the same data.
MR. NADELHAFT: And in terms of the percentage of the amount of time "Waldman" or "Wald-Mignon" was used in a negative hash tag from April 2020 through -- I is it January of 2021?
RON SCHNELL: The percent?
MR. NADELHAFT: Yeah. What's the percentage?
RON SCHNELL: Yeah. So I found over 25 percent of In the negative hashtag tweets, or one out of every four on average, had either "Waldman" or I "Wald-Mignon."
MR. NADELHAFT: And I see you ran searches for "hoax," "fake," "fraud," rather than "abuse hoax" in quotes or "sexual violence hoax" in quotes.
MR. NADELHAFT: Why didn't you run those searches?
MR. DENNISON: Objection. Compound.
THE COURT: Overruled.
RON SCHNELL: So if I had put them in quotes like that, say "abuse hoax" in quotes, that would require that it show up in exactly that way, with 76 -4--+---- ----------------60-76-- the same spacing, in the same order. So if it said something like "There was abuse and there was a hoax," it wouldn't get caught. So if I take the quotes out and search for them separately, search for things separately, that'll cover it and make sure I catch everything.
MR. NADELHAFT: And based on your analysis of these I searches within the negative hashtags, what do the I results of these searches mean?
RON SCHNELL: Well, obviously I can't read what's in people's minds, but, you know, when I read the disclosure of Mr. Depp's expert, Mr. Bania, he stated that if these terms, particularly the "Waldman" term --
MR. DENNISON: Objection. Hearsay.
MR. NADELHAFT: He's an expert.
THE COURT: Overruled.
RON SCHNELL: If these terms had shown up a lot of times in the negative hashtag tweets, then that could show that they were, you know, paraphrasing the impetus of why people tweeted these. So I sort of adopted Mr. Bania's opinion on that and found this large number. So I agree with Mr. Depp's expert that this could show a substantial correlation.
MR. NADELHAFT: And to what level of confidence do you hold the opinions you just provided to the jury?
RON SCHNELL: To a reasonable degree of scientific certainty.
MR. NADELHAFT: Thank you, Mr. Schnell. I have no further questions.
THE COURT: All right. Cross-examination.
MR. DENNISON: Sir, this is the first time that you've testified as an expert as -- in the field of statistical and forensic analysis of social media, isn't it?
RON SCHNELL: I consulted on litigation for it, but it never got to testimony; that's correct.
MR. DENNISON: This is your first testimony?
RON SCHNELL: Testimony, yes.
MR. DENNISON: And you've never been involved in a defamation case before?
RON SCHNELL: That's correct.
MR. DENNISON: Okay. And you're being compensated for your time here today and the work you did, correct?
RON SCHNELL: Berkeley Research Group is being compensated, yes.
MR. DENNISON: At $600 an hour?
RON SCHNELL: That's what they're getting paid.
MR. DENNISON: Right. And you're aware that Mr. Depp is being sued based on allegedly defamatory statements. What are the dates of those statements?
RON SCHNELL: My understanding is that there was something around April 8th, I believe April 27th, and June 24th, somewhere in the end of June.
MR. DENNISON: Okay. So and where do you understand those statements to have resided?
RON SCHNELL: In the public media.
MR. DENNISON: In any particular article or --
RON SCHNELL: I didn't consider that.
MR. DENNISON: All right. So you're not offering an opinion on how widely the articles that contain those statements were read?
RON SCHNELL: That's correct.
MR. DENNISON: And you're not offering an opinion as to how many people actually saw the language that's been attributed to Mr. Waldman? I 8
RON SCHNELL: Only a minimum number of people who could have seen it based on the tweets that I referenced it.
MR. DENNISON: Thank you. And you don't know even I where those references appear in the articles?
RON SCHNELL: I'm not sure what you mean.
MR. DENNISON: There are statements by Mr. Waldman that appear in articles. Do you understand that?
RON SCHNELL: I do.
MR. DENNISON: Do you know in what portion of the I articles the statements appear?
RON SCHNELL: I've looked at the articles, and from that I've seen where they appear.
MR. DENNISON: All right. And where, in general do they appear? In the middle, the end, what's your sense?
RON SCHNELL: That, I'm not sure of. I mean, the ones that I looked at on the 6th and 7th, I think they were towards the top.
MR. DENNISON: All right. So you testified that you reviewed a number of hashtags that you deemed were negative towards Ms. Heard; that's right?
RON SCHNELL: Yes.
MR. DENNISON: And the four you picked, at least the negative ones, "justice for Johnny Depp," that's from one of them, right?
RON SCHNELL: That's right.
MR. DENNISON: "Amber Heard is an abuser," that's one of them?
RON SCHNELL: That is one of them
MR. DENNISON: "We just don't like you Amber"; that's ! 18 one of them?
RON SCHNELL: That is one of them
MR. DENNISON: And the last one is "Amber turd," right?
RON SCHNELL: That is another one.
MR. DENNISON: Okay. And these four hashtags you identified and searched for, you have no -- you don't believe they have any connection, or you testified that you have no connection to these three Waldman statements? The hashtags aren't connected to Waldman, right?
RON SCHNELL: I did an additional analysis that did show how many of those had Waldman connected to them, and I found that 1 out of 4 of them did.
MR. DENNISON: Right. But when you were deposed, you were asked whether these were related -- these particular hash tags were related to any of the Waldman statements, and you said no at that time.
RON SCHNELL: I said more than that. I did -- I said I didn't know, and then I said I'm basing my -- I'm looking at Mr. Bania's opinion where he says they would be if they were in large number. And I'm adopting his opinion and agreeing with him that they must be connected.
MR. DENNISON: So you're adopting an opinion that hasn't been rendered in this case yet by anybody but you?
RON SCHNELL: Well, I know that Mr. Bania -
MR. DENNISON: Has testified?
RON SCHNELL: Okay. What I'm saying is I know that Mr. Bania, Mr. Bania 's disclosure, says that he is expected to come to that opinion.
MR. DENNISON: All right. But the only person who's ever expressed this opinion to date in this courtroom is you, correct?
RON SCHNELL: I have not watched everything. I watched a bit.
MR. DENNISON: So you're adopting your own opinion?
RON SCHNELL: No. I'm adopting the opinion that I read in Mr. Bania's report.
MR. DENNISON: And that's not the opinion you had during your deposition?
RON SCHNELL: I think I did make reference in my deposition to what Mr. Bania said, and then I agreed with it.
MR. DENNISON: And you indicated in deposition you didn't take into account statements made in the media, correct?
RON SCHNELL: Made in what? I couldn't hear you.
MR. DENNISON: You said you did not take into account Is I in your analysis statements made in the media?
RON SCHNELL: Media. Yes. In the analysis where I gathered data and decided which data to gather, I did not take into accounts statements of the media.
MR. DENNISON: All right. So you looked at data, you produced charts, you did an analysis relating to the data, but you had no reason at the time you did this to consider any particular statements; isn't that true?
RON SCHNELL: That's true. I think that's an appropriate scientific methodology, to not - to first gather as much data as possible and then drill down on the data.
MR. DENNISON: All right. And the Twitter data you collected shows that the four hashtags you identified were in existence before Mr. Waldman made the first statement in April 2020, right?
RON SCHNELL: That's correct, in very small number.
MR. DENNISON: But "justice for Johnny Depp" has been around since 2013, correct?
RON SCHNELL: That sounds correct.
MR. DENNISON: Yeah. "Amber Heard is an abuser" and "Amber turd" first appeared in 2016, correct?
RON SCHNELL: I don't recall, actually.
MR. DENNISON: All right. Do you recall if there was any portion of Mr. Waldman's statement that made any reference to "Amber turd"?
RON SCHNELL: Not that I've seen.
MR. DENNISON: Right. People can form a negative view of Ms. Heard without reading Mr. Waldman's statement, correct?
RON SCHNELL: People can form a negative opinion of anyone without reading anything; that's correct.
MR. DENNISON: And you didn't consider whether there I was negative publicity around Ms. Heard other than I the Waldman statements?
RON SCHNELL: Well, what I did was to report on correlation with these hashtags and certain search terms in particular. I wasn't trying to read anyone's mind as to why they used them.
MR. DENNISON: All right. You didn't form any opinion of the million tweets, the million-plus tweets that you looked at, were connected in some way to Mr. Waldman's statements?
RON SCHNELL: I did eventually, yes.
MR. DENNISON: You did eventually after you read somebody else's report relative to testimony that hasn't been given here?
RON SCHNELL: Well, I did it before my deposition.
MR. DENNISON: All right. You have a demonstrative that counsel played for you.
MR. DENNISON: Can we put up Plaintiffs 1901 again.
MR. DENNISON: This is yours, right?
RON SCHNELL: Correct.
MR. DENNISON: Yeah. The biggest spikes, by far the biggest spikes here, are attributable to what hashtag?
RON SCHNELL: "Justice for Johnny Depp" hashtag.
MR. DENNISON: Yeah. And there are spikes that existed considerably before Mr. Waldman's statement? You were asked about that by counsel?
RON SCHNELL: One of them did. That was the day that Mr. Waldman leaked the audiotape.
MR. DENNISON: The biggest spike was before the statements?
RON SCHNELL: Right, the day he leaked the audio.
MR. DENNISON: And yet there are many statements that -- or many hashtags, or uses of the hashtag, that followed the statements?
RON SCHNELL: You'll have to be more specific.
MR. DENNISON: We!L so you looked at a million-two of these hashtags, right?
RON SCHNELL: Right.
MR. DENNISON: In your chart, didn't 980,000 of these plus belong to "justice for Johnny Depp"?
RON SCHNELL: That sound about right. You'd have to show me, but I take your word for it.
MR. DENNISON: All right. But the vast majority of them were "justice for Johnny Depp"?
RON SCHNELL: A majority of them were.
MR. DENNISON: Well, wasn't the majority so large that you had to draw another chart?
RON SCHNELL: The reason for drawing another chart is because the numbers were high at particular points, so you wouldn't be able to see the other hashtags.
MR. DENNISON: Right. Literally, this is your chart, I and all of the other activity at the bottom you could barely see in comparison to that hashtag, "justice for Johnny Depp"?
RON SCHNELL: Right. As I testified, you can barely see them because of the spike in the "justice for Johnny Depp" hashtag, but when you look at the other charts, you can see that those others are still very large numbers.
MR. DENNISON: So you're not offering any opinion as to what caused these spikes?
RON SCHNELL: That's correct.
MR. DENNISON: So you're not opining us why these !Is spikes are there?
RON SCHNELL: I'm only talking about correlation.
MR. DENNISON: You're talking about a mathematical?
RON SCHNELL: Right.
MR. DENNISON: And you don't purport to be in anybody's head such that you know why they did a ,21 particular post with a particular hashtag?
RON SCHNELL: That's correct.
MR. DENNISON: There's a second spike that appears to be in July of 2020.
RON SCHNELL: Yes. The pointer was pointing to a different one, but yes.
MR. DENNISON: Were you aware there was a trial in the U.K. in 2020?
RON SCHNELL: I'm aware.
MR. DENNISON: And in July?
RON SCHNELL: You're saying it was in July?
MR. DENNISON: No. As of that, the time of that I spike, there was publicity around a triaL correct?
RON SCHNELL: I don't know how much publicity there was, but I know the trial was going on then.
MR. DENNISON: All right. There were a number of things called out in your chart relative to particular dates: December 17th, February 11th, February 14th. Do you see all of those?
RON SCHNELL: I do.
MR. DENNISON: And your chart makes absolutely no reference to, and does not identify, the dates of any of the Waldman statements, does it, sir?
RON SCHNELL: No. No, it doesn't call those out if that's what you're asking.
MR. DENNISON: It calls out a whole bunch of dates, but nothing relative to the Waldman statements?
RON SCHNELL: Correct.
MR. DENNISON: All right. At some point you ran searches for additional search terms: "Hoax," "fraud," I trunk you've said "fake." And then you don't know why those terms appear, do you?
RON SCHNELL: I'm not sure what you mean by that question. Are you asking me -
MR. DENNISON: You don't -- you could not perform a scientific analysis of the reason why these -- those search terms appeared in the tweets you were looking at?
RON SCHNELL: Right. I could only show mathematical correlation.
MR. DENNISON: You can show a correlation, but you don't have any idea why they're there?
RON SCHNELL: I can't get into people's heads.
MR. DENNISON: And just because the tweet contains one of the terms does not mean the tweet was in some -------------- - way prompted by Mr. Waldman, right?
RON SCHNELL: Well, there are a few things I searched for, the ones you just mentioned and then the "Waldman" and "Wald-Mignon" terms. So it's not that big a stretch to say that it's related to Mr. Waldman if it's his name and "Wald-Mignon," or minion.
MR. DENNISON: Wait a minute. Is the new standard "It's not that big of a stretch''?
RON SCHNELL: No. I'm trying to --
MR. DENNISON: (Indiscernible due to cross talking), right?
RON SCHNELL: Yes.
MR. DENNISON: So you're not suggesting that you know why Mr. Waldman's name appeared in any of these tweets?
RON SCHNELL: Well, if you look at -- if you look at the tweets that have Wald-Mignon, you know, and I looked at a large sample of them --
RON SCHNELL: A large sample is 2,000 out of a million-two?
RON SCHNELL: No, I looked at more than that of these. That's another thing that I wouldn't expect to be in controversy. You know, when people are saying that a part of the Wald-Mignon or things like that, I would expect everybody to agree without arguing that it has to do with Mr. Waldman.
MR. DENNISON: Nobody else had anything to do with I 8 Mr. Waldman. I'm wondering how you know if it has anything to do with Mr. Waldman's statements.
RON SCHNELL: I was under the impression, I was informed that nobody really knew who Mr. Waldman was before all of this, so I wouldn't expect it to be anything else. I didn't think there was any controversy.
MR. DENNISON: It wasn't in controversy whether I everyone knew who Mr. Waldman was; is that your I testimony?
RON SCHNELL: No. Didn't expect any controversy that if somebody was suddenly talking about him that it had to do with this case.
MR. DENNISON: Sir, it's not "Did it have to do with this case?" It's "Did it have to do with the" allegedly defamatory statements? You have no idea, do you, sir?
RON SCHNELL: I can't get into anyone's mind. I can only talk about the science of it.
MR. DENNISON: Right. And so you identified all of i these hashtags as negative towards Ms. Heard, right?
RON SCHNELL: Right.
MR. DENNISON: "Justice for Johnny Depp" is not I IO negative towards Ms. Heard, is it?
RON SCHNELL: No. But the tweets that use that hashtag are.
MR. DENNISON: But the hashtag itself, the hashtag that predominates through your analysis, is not, in fact, negative toward Ms. Heard?
RON SCHNELL: I'm not opining on the hashtags itself; I'm talking about the tweets that contain that hashtag.
MR. DENNISON: But the hashtag itself is not negative?
RON SCHNELL: That's not part of my opinion one way or the other. ,22
MR. DENNISON: Do you have an opinion as to whether 'justice for Johnny Depp' is a good thing?
RON SCHNELL: That's not part of my assignment.
MR. DENNISON: Okay. But you'll agree with me justice in general is a good thing?
RON SCHNELL: Big fan of justice.
MR. DENNISON: All right. Me too. No further questions.
THE COURT: All right. Redirect.
MR. NADELHAFT: Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Okay. Sir.
MR. NADELHAFT: Mr. Schnell, you reviewed a large sampling of tweets of ''.justice for Johnny Depp," correct?
RON SCHNELL: I did.
MR. NADELHAFT: And the tweets that had the hashtag ''.justice for Johnny Depp," how many of them were negative toward Ms. Heard?
RON SCHNELL: All of them.
MR. NADELHAFT: And what percentage of the tweets with negative hashtags between April 2020 and January 31st, 2021, contained the terms "Waldman" or "Wald-Mignon"?
MR. DENNISON: Objection, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled. I'll allow it.
RON SCHNELL: Over 25 percent, 1 out of 4.
MR. NADELHAFT: And in your analysis, how far of times did tweets containing "Waldman" or "Wald-Mignon" go? Like how far until now?
MR. DENNISON: Beyond the scope of cross.
MR. NADELHAFT: He was asking about --
THE COURT: Overruled.
RON SCHNELL: So I think I disclosed in my deposition that I looked further into 2022 and found that it continued to go on. I don't see any end to it now.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. And based on your analysis, again, what period of time had more negative tweets against Ms. Heard? Before or after April 2020?
RON SCHNELL: It was clearly double as many from It April to 2020.
MR. NADELHAFT: And that's even including the February 2020 spike, correct?
RON SCHNELL: That's right And that happened before April obviously, so even if you put that in there, it's still a lot more after April of 2020. And there were fewer months in that time period I s think there's 15 months in that time period and 27 months in the first part
MR. NADELHAFT: And based on your analysis what, if any, end do you see to the negative tweets toward Ms. Heard?
MR. DENNISON: Objection. What foundation?
MR. NADELHAFT: Based on his analysis up until the time --
THE COURT: I'll sustain the objection.
MR. NADELHAFT: Okay. Based on your analysis, at the end of the time of your analysis, what was happening with the negative tweets towards Ms. Heard?
RON SCHNELL: They continue to go on.
MR. NADELHAFT: Mr. Schnell, after your cross-examination, have any of your opinions changed?
RON SCHNELL: No, they've not.
MR. NADELHAFT: Thank you. Nothing else.
THE COURT: Okay. So you can have a seat in the courtroom or you're free to go. Okay, sir? Next witness.