Yao

I. BACKGROUND

19 On October 13, 2025, Dr. Yao, an urgent care physician, filed this defamation action 20 against two named defendants, Coco Altatis and Conan Daily, and a number of unnamed Doe 21 defendants. Dkt. No. 1. Dr. Yao alleges that Mr. Altatis is the publisher of the conandaily.com 22 website, which is owned by the entity Conan Daily. Id. ¶¶ 3-4. 23 According to the complaint, in 2021, two women falsely accused Dr. Yao of misconduct. 24 Id. ¶ 9. Their accusations led to criminal charges being filed against Dr. Yao, as well as a civil 25 harassment case. Id. ¶ 10. The criminal case was eventually dismissed, and Dr. Yao alleges that 26 he is factually innocent. Id. ¶¶ 10-11. The civil harassment case was also dismissed. Id. ¶ 10. 27 Separately, the Medical Board of California considered the women’s complaints against Dr. Yao and found them not credible; however, the Medical Board did find that Dr. Yao had been unprofessional and placed him on probation. Id. ¶ 11. Dr. Yao alleges that in mid-2025, he found an article that had been published on the conandaily.com website in November 2024 titled, “13 things about Cupertino, California’s Dr. 5 …