Courtroom “Feud” Leaves Accurate Speech About Celebrities Unprotected

I would challenge that Damore's memo in no way states anything close to "women are biologically unfit for tech work", something that was widely claimed. And instead said that reducing populations to averages to make such spurious claims is damaging, and that there maybe some biological root that explains part of the gap in engagement in tech between men and women that cause fewer women to want to join. So in this case, yes what was published against Damore, by media companies, was an "outright lie" and should be legally punished.

I think your point is stronger for "death panels". But I don't think it's an outright lie to say that a government panel making decisions as to whether a particular medication is "comparatively effective" is making life and death decisions for some patients. When the FDA doesn't let terminally ill patients try a drug with a low chance of success, it is arguably acting as a death panel. And don't forget that a public option was on the table for Obamacare until final passage. The bill kept changing. A public insurer would definitely have a a board determining which treatments would be covered or not, i.e. a "death panel".

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203513204576047...

At the point when Gizmodo published the memo and later the New York Times, Damore was not a public figure. He became a public figure because of the media attention. As such those media networks would likely not be able to use the public figure defense in this case, but they can use the public figure defense in regard to Obama.

To make a similar parallel, political satire is legal but if you do the exact same to a private person it would be harassment. The difference between the two is that one target a human being with the intent of doing personal harm, and the other targets a political role with the intent of creating discussion.

FWIW, there are free speech absolutists, like the late Justice Scalia, who nonetheless share my concern about weak libel laws.

How would you feel if the standard was lowered only for getting a court-mandated public apology, not monetary damages?

"Google CEO cuts vacation short to address controversial memo that argued women aren't biologically fit for tech jobs"

I remember the headlines on CNN.com using the phrase "biologically unfit", which is the exact same thing as "not biologically fit" anyway.

Further, he was arguing that this could be at least partly mitigated by changing certain cultural and institutional aspects of the tech industry, to better leverage different personality types and actually improve the performance of Google.

So no, it wasn't part of his underlying thesis and I question how you could think so if you actually read it. Perhaps you're just repeating what the commentariat told you he said?

What would you think about that?