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slow clap

It sounds like a database call somewhere has a cardinality bug, or that they search purely by name instead of some unique identifier.

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I'd guess they just search by name, that's all they consistently have to go off for news stories from a third party.

What I wonder is, from a libel perspective, is putting an up-front disclaimer that your association of a person with information is done without even rudimentary validation that is true information about the person it is associated with a defense against libel, or just an admission of one of the key elements of the tort?

I'd be interested to see this litigated; I'm hoping the latter, because otherwise I expect the rate of algorithmic defamation to increase to rather intolerable levels in the not-to-distant future.

From my newspaper days, no amount of disclaiming will get round the fact that they put a picture of the guy next to the article. The test in the UK is if whatever you publish will make a reasonable person think worse of an individual and there are only a handful of very specific defences available, the best of which is that whatever you say is true.

Libel laws in the UK are notoriously very favorable to the plaintiff. At least in the US, the test is more along the lines of "knowingly false".

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