Defamation lawsuit over “Shitty Media Men” spreadsheet could break new ground
hollywoodreporter.com
hollywoodreporter.com
Putting aside (if you can) what Cosby was accused of, the trial by media and widespread publicity of accuser allegations and claims over a multi year, two trial period was a disaster for legal credibility IMO.
"“The ability to find evidence that can support a defense 20 years later — it’s an almost insurmountable task,” said Nina J. Ginsberg, a criminal defense lawyer in Virginia who has handled a number of sexual assault cases.
“Having these really long statutes of limitations where it makes it virtually impossible to disprove what the victim is saying is grossly unfair,” she added. “Just from the defense attorney’s perspective, it’s disabling.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-gloria-allred-...
With historical sexual allegations a powerful weapon in politics, business and for financial gain, the accused are increasingly defenseless and accused is the new guilty.
I'm not defending 'shitty men' or Bill Cosby here, I'm saying the legal system is a mess and that careers and credibility are destroyed during the witch hunt whether found guilty or not.
Whatever happened to 'innocent until proved guilty' and the accused's rights to privacy?
Can you help me better understand what happened here, though? Because it sounds like you called a coworker a bitch and was fired over it, and now can't get a recommendation from that job... In which case, can you understand why people might have a hard time sympathizing with your situation? Seems the results would be the same whether or not the story morphed.
To me, personal insults are definitely not preferred, but it seems harsh to set a ground rule for dismissal if they are used. Is it just the word “bitch” or would “asshole” or “dickhead” or any pejorative also count?
I think there are some categories that fall into this and if a racial slur is used then, to me, that falls into should territory.
It really depends on the jurisdiction's employment rights and very much on the context as to whether it could be grounds for dismissal, but I can certainly see situations where you could be summarily dismissed even in a jurisdiction with relatively strong employment protections, such as the UK.
It's also worth noting that in some cases the employer is placed in a difficult position where they face a difficult choice: do nothing and they run the risk of an employee leaving citing constructive dismissal as management did nothing to handle the bullying; do something and risk retribution from the alleged. In some jurisdictions, sex discrimination in the workplace can lead to a substantial claim, so if you use aggressive language towards a female colleague in a 90% male workplace, HR is going to get twitchy.
Allegations in the form of statements are substantive evidence when it comes to employment disputes and if gross misconduct is defined by your workplace as bullying or harassing co-workers, you can expect to be summarily dismissed.
Also, employers can and frequently are wrong in their interpretation of what they can and cannot lawfully do. Again, this depends on jurisdiction but some jurisdictions have tribunals where you can take your case without the risk of costs being awarded against you.
"Taking complaints to your manager instead of verbally attacking them" has nothing to do with a meritocracy, it's a political action for a political environment. It just happens to be one that will accomplish what you're trying to do much more successfully.
> a coworker that should deserve termination
Isn't that for their employer to decide?
I'm genuinely curious if anybody that reads this thinks it's acceptable or normal behavior to levy a genuine swear-insult at a coworker. That sounds like a fucking awful work environment. Actually contempt for each other? What kind of awful office culture is that?
I've had co-workers piss me off, I'm not pretending to be a saint, but there is always at a bare minimum mutual respect, or even below that an understanding that we have to share the same office at the end of the day, so insulting each other is pissing in the well.
That just doesn't exist. Context is important. In the identity of the caller and the callee, in the nature of their working relationship, and in the nature of the interaction. For example a manager calling a direct report a bitch in anger should be completely unacceptable IMHO, while one colleague calling another a bitch in jest may be just fine.
If we generalize what you've said to race, it shouldn't matter whether a white person is using the n-word. Except some number of white people did use that word for a long time with utmost contempt. If you used that word as a white person in an inclusive workplace today with the full contempt of the word, I doubt you'd still be in post 24 hours later unless you had something like tourettes. [0] I doubt we'd be having such a discussion about that.
In many cultures, women have been treated as second-class citizens and, in many cultures, they are still treated as second-class citizens. Consider that in one canton in Switzerland, women didn't get to vote on local matters until 1990. [1]
In nearly all countries, the distribution of power is still very much skewed towards men. The difference between a woman calling another woman a bitch and a man is the potential for confusion with contempt based purely on gender alone. A woman is perceived as unlikely to hold contemptuous views towards women based on their gender alone. This doesn't mean there are not women who despise women for being women, it's just that it is not perceived as such. It even depends on where it is and how the word is used. As such it's probably one of those words to avoid.
This isn't political-correctness-gone-mad or because of some liberal cultural-marxist conspiracy to turn men into second-class citizens; it's because in a fraction of a second, even though that word may have no connotations of contempt to you, you have potentially reduced that person to an object of that contempt. Some people may not be affected by this, but some people will and be rather hurt. It's simply bad for business, no matter how useless you may perceive that person to be. If men had been treated as second-class citizens for centuries by women and dick was a pejorative term used against men, it would be a problem if a woman used that word against a man.
Consider the following:
- You'll never guess what that bitch has done now.
- You bitch!
- She's a bit of a bitch
- Hey, bitches!
Where I'm from (UK) each has a different level of contempt. I can't see that much in the last one. The first one is almost certainly contemptuous. The second one is very context dependent: if said scornfully it's contemptuous; if said jokingly it's probably not, although it could be confused as such.
[0] Although, if you did have Tourette syndrome or similar, it is unlikely that you would say it with the full contempt unless you actually felt that contempt. Sadly, some people with tourettes do find it hard to keep a job because it is rather poorly understood.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerl...
I am not a native speaker, so I might be wrong on this. But I believed that "bitch" is the female version of "dick", isn't it? For example in Italian both are rendered with the same word, only flexed by gender.
The word “bitch” however literally means “female dog” and is, in fact, used in a non-derogatory way in dog breeding circles.
Context is everything, but calling a female coworker a “bitch” is not acceptable in a professional environment.
Is this happening? Are people experiencing this? Why is this allowed to happen?
Though usage varies tremendously and is heavily context dependent. In some cases, women use the word bitch in describing themselves to mean they have backbone and are willing to stand up for themselves in the face of a toxic, misogynistic culture.
It's naive and unrealistic to pretend that tempers will never flare, and that if they do, the flarers should be immediately dismissed -- in fact, I'd say depending on the employee's background and the relevant jurisdiction, it may be naive and unrealistic enough to be legally actionable.
I've always worked in high stress environments, if simply because the needs of the workload, is stressful.
Personally, I find yelling, using coarse but not targeted language (say, "fuck this shit") or turning one's back and leaving would be inside the line, but I don't think I could maintain the same respect for a coworker that called me or some other colleague "bitch".
Also, do you think that getting drunk at work and starting to shout insults against a colleague is the same as using an epithet in a moment of anger- maybe due to the context, etc.?
Er, yea, I'd understand if a coworker got fired for this...
"Getting fired" doesn't really make sense as a comparative bar for workplace behavior, considering it's the most dramatic action a company can do (other than I guess sueing). So asking whether two different actions are both equal because they both could cause firing doesn't make sense to me - presumably someone would get fired for stealing office supplies, or pissing on their boss's desk, or throwing a monitor out the window, but that doesn't say anything about how heinous an individual action is.
I do think it's fair to fire someone for losing control so much that their level of respect for a colleague drops to the point that they'll level an epithet at them. No matter how frustrated I get with my team, or they get with me, I expect there to always be that baseline of respect.
Years later someone comes up to me and says "wow are you the guy that went completely nuts when he got fired and tore the store up?!" and this one little story of me just saying goodbye to everyone and walking through the store got blown up into this monstrosity through word-of-mouth. I was really surprised.
People already own things when they become homeless, so a smartphone would only cost for the data,and some places have free wifi.
Managing to keep in touch with a source of possibly useful information during a time of hardship is resourceful.
Calling your coworker a bitch is most certainly a fireable offense. Sorry to hear you haven't found work since.
Maybe taking ownership of your mistake and showing remorse will impress potential future employers.
As a mild media observer, the last few false accusations that cropped up seemed to be summarily dismissed, with a total drop of credibility for the accusers. Remember "Hugh Mungus?" Or Aziz Ansari's awkward date where he recommended a wine choice? Last I checked Aziz still has a career, and Hugh turned out fine.
Basically, I disagree with the premise that people's lives are being ruined by false accusations. Considering that they're so rare already, and that the media-participant world moves on quickly when an accusation turns out to be false (or even "punishes" the false accuser), the current (much repeated by right wing media) narrative of "innocent until proven guilty is dead" and "#metoo is destroying honest men's families" is a false narrative.
Edit: I'm very happy to have a majority disagree with me, but I could learn a lot more about why my take is unpopular if someone could spare a few sentences as to why they disagree, alongside their downvote.
I want us to shame convicted criminals. Shaming accused criminals is dangerous and makes finding real convictions hard. Maybe so far every major public accusation was correct. But would you ever put it past some crooked billionaire to fund a false accusation campaign against someone? To use a few political characters as an example, what if the Koch brothers led a smear campaign like this against the next Bernie Sanders? Should we behave as if accusations are generally true, and begin treating the accused as guilty immediately? Or should we recognize that while rape and other assaults do happen often and are terrible crimes, the court of public opinion could still be intentionally manipulated by bad actors, and such a manipulation represents a powerful tool for smearing good people?
This is what I see being discussed in these comments. The risk that we create when we automatically believe all accusations. I totally get the history of dismissal men have had towards women that has led to a shameful lack of conviction for sex crimes. And so I understand why defaulting to believing the women is a good idea. And between some random public citizens, or comedians etc, I’m less worried about false accusations. But once big party politics get involved, it seems way easier for me to imagine a false accusation being used as a tool of public manipulation. And that’s something I think we should be mindful of.
What do you think of that?
This is a problem that needs to be solved and the first step to solving it is to listen to and believe the people who have been assaulted.
I see a lot of other people here talking about something different. Specifically I see other people here talking about the potential misuse of sexual assault accusations as it relates to Washington politics.
It’s pretty hard to separate “believing the accuser by default” and “being concerned about false accusations as a means of slander” as they both relate to largely the same discussion. But I also think a lot of confusion and misunderstanding occurs when one party is trying to talk about one of those ideas, and the other is trying to talk about another. They’re not necessarily exclusive, but I don’t think they’re identical discussions.
Cosby was a major role model in the 90's and arguably a major force for societal good. The bare facts of his legal journey are that a stand up comedian caused rumors about Cosby assaulting women to go viral in the initial mass use of social media era. Cosby refrained from commenting on this at that time. Multiple accusations were made which were heavily publicized internationally in great detail, tarnishing his legacy and image. Famous lawyer Allred said Cosby would need to put aside 100 million usd in compensation for his victims in 2012. multiple people came forward with claims of being drugged and raped, sometimes on multiple occasions, by Cosby. Allred attempted to bring 12 cases to court but only one, Andrea Consand, was allowed by the courts. There was a mistrial and then another trial which Allred won for Consand. several of the other accusers - who couldn't sue anyway due to to expired statutes - had their recollections misproven by the Cosby defense with no subsequent action taken for defamation. Cosby was of course jailed.
The broader effect of all this was arguably a trial by media, the destruction of Cosby and his businesses, and presumably costly compensation for Allred and Constand to come.
Cosby was worth 350 million USD at his peak, tried to buy NBC TV in 2012 and wasn't afraid to say what he thought. He has enemies. He was rich enough to pay for depraved sex every day of his life if he so chose.
Cosby may well be insane and illogically chose to drug and rape women, risking everything and losing. That is not my point. If someone who has 350m can be destroyed in the media over multiple years based on accusations, where does that leave the rest of us? what defense do we have if a predatory past acquaintance publicly accuses us of sexual assault? It seems we have no rights and little entitlement to presumed innocence- and as you rightly point out once you add politics into the mix weaponized sex appears to be an attack we are defenseless against.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/11/reflections-hash...
To remember, this wasn't "innocent until proven guilty", but "found innocent in court".
> I disagree with the premise that people's lives are being ruined by false accusations.
The editor of the New York Review of Books was forced to resign for running the Gomeshi piece.
No, people are found "not guilty" by the court. That doesn't mean "he didn't do it", it means "we the jury are not persuaded to the very high criminal burden of proof ('beyond all reasonable doubt') that he did it". That might include "he definitely didn't do it", but it also includes "he probably did it" and "he almost certainly did do it".
On March 24, 2016, the judge delivered the verdict. Ghomeshi was acquitted of all charges, on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Justice William Horkins stated that the inconsistency and "outright deception" of the witness' testimony had irreparably weakened the prosecution's case.[56] "Each complainant," he wrote, "demonstrated, to some degree, a willingness to ignore their oath to tell the truth on more than one occasion." Referring to a witness' excuse that she was merely trying to "navigate" the proceeding, Horkins replied "'Navigating' this sort of proceeding is really quite simple: tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."[57]
Innocence in a legal sense has always been far removed from public opinion. The existence of things like the police blotter in local newspapers demonstrates that pretty well.
I’m not opining on the righteousness of it, but it seems like a whole lot of people ‘got religion’ w/r/t fairness once it started impacting rich/privileged people.
The difference is that technology has taken infamy to a global scale, making available a global reserve of vicious, unchecked sadism to those who can figure out how to point the cannon at their desired target. The only thing left to do is to fight over control of the cannon.
It’s not good and I truthfully don’t know how we fix this, but I hope we fix the whole problem and not just the symptom of powerful people being convicted in the court of public opinion.
but they aren't.
If three accusations are not powerful enough to stop someone from getting a seat on the supreme court, any claim that we're giving too much power to accusers can't be taken seriously.
The timing wasn't the issue.
1. https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1046923936011825152
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/09/27/k...
Kavanaugh has been elevated to a position of supreme power for the remainder of his lifetime, despite credible allegations of sexual assault and perjury.
The system failed Christine Ford.
If Kavanaugh had been charged and convicted at the time of the alleged assault, and had never become a lawyer let alone a judge, the reptiles would have just selected someone with identical values as the next justice.
The system doesn't really punish wealthy white members of the elite that commit sexual assault[1]. There's no reason to believe that had he been convicted then, that he wouldn't have gone on to have the same career trajectory.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/us/outrage-in-stanford-ra...
>the reptiles would have just selected someone with identical values as the next justice.
Republicans could have avoided this critique entirely by abandoning Kavanaugh when the allegation came to light. Instead, they doubled down on him. Politicians only do this if they judge that the ramifications of their decision would tip in their favor come next election season.
There is a vocal contingent of the country that seeks to retain existing power structures that wave away consequences for wealthy white men.
Whether there is enough political momentum to topple that, or even question it, will come to light in November. If it doesn't, our institutions will further entrench the values that let Kavanaugh slither by.
ISTM that the November effects of the whole mess will be R voters voting R, and D voters voting D. That is, R control of Congress will probably continue.
There are more D voters. If both groups turned out in droves, D control would win the day handedly. Republicans are losing the demographic war. Young people want progressive policy, and the majority vote Democrat. That's why Republicans are resorting to tactics like gerrymandering, Voter ID and purging people off the voter rolls to keep control[1].
They're betting that they can make enough semi-permanent changes to institutions by installing judges and setting precedent to postpone the shift as long as possible[2].
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/books/review-one-person-n...
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/06/trump...
> They did come out prior to him being nominated.
IIRC, the allegations only came out publicly after the confirmation hearings were over. Sen. Feinstein knew about them earlier, but kept them private, so that doesn't really count.
So I think the GP's point stands. If the allegations had came out before he'd been nominated, he'd have never been selected and someone else would have been confirmed.
The narrative that "all named people denied Ford's claim" is an intentional oversimplification spread by the GOP to discredit her evidence[2].
1. https://thelawdictionary.org/testimony/
2. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/8x75y5/cornyn-says-alleg...
There isn't much of a case when they only thing that can be said is "you did this" and "no I didn't"
Senator Grassley prevented both sides from presenting witnesses that would have corroborated their testimony.
The GOP members of the committee unanimously voted down a motion to subpoena Mark Judge[1].
1. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/28/republican-senators-vote-dow...
I'm simply emphasizing the lack of followup here. We were perfectly capable of investigating Christine Ford's claim fully and thoroughly, and the Republicans in power opted not to.
It doesn't make a great case for the "historical power of allegations."
I'm not discounting the correctness of the idea, but in a legal realism sense, is presumption of innocence a natural idea? What is the expectation it'll happen in an informal environment?
It's similar free speech when people figure out it doesn't protect your job. Free speech protecting you in a public sphere seems to only be effective if your life is mostly defined in the public sphere. The more your life is defined in a private sphere, I'd argue the less those rights really exist in a practical sense.
I would expect it to evolve in any group where false accusations are cheap to make and costly to bear, whether the context is formal or informal.
It’s simply not true. It’s true only when speaking of the First Amendment specifically — but the concept and ideal of free speech and expression is much larger than the First Amendment. It also has a much longer history, dating back to Ancient Greece.
You can't stage a protest in a shopping mall, no matter how much it looks like a public space. There's no expectation you would have freedom of speech there. The liberty of property would seem to be the most powerful of all.
If your life looks more like a shopping mall than a public square, I don't know what other expectations any modern person or Athenian alike may have.
I'm aware that some parts where planned carefully to increase the chances of him getting approved.
But still there are massive holes in the attacks against him. So big that even if is Trumps favourite candidate (and therefore I have reason to dislike him) it still ends up with nothing except what seems to be baseless accusations.
It cannot be like this, that someone can come out of nowhere 30 years later without a single piece of evidence - except a testimony from a peeson who is clearly trying to hurt him - and we are supposed to believe it.
And as it turns out they cannot prove the thing they originally accused him for - then immediately they try to "prove" he is a witch in two other ways:
- he drank too much back in the days
- he was angry when he defended himself
I say witch hunt is a good word.
He was declared a witch by certain people and from there on the only thing that mattered was to pin him for something.
People now get tried in the court of public opinion as a function of virtue signaling - "Person X did currently unpopular thing Y, I must show that I do not support the activity of Y, by expressing my displeasure of person X" and on, and on, and on, also people are not willing to admit that in some of these cases, the people are mistaken, confused about what happened or intentions, or about the identity of people involved. It's not to say that nothing happened, but it may not line up with the reality of the situation claimed.
Generally, I use the following rule:
1 accusation without corresponding other evidence? I'm willing to discount, depending on the situation.
2-3 accusations without corresponding other evidence? Something may have happened here, and a deeper investigation should happen.
4+ accusations without corresponding other evidence? Person might be guilty of what they are accused of, we should really investigate this so the justice system can do its thing.
I mean, how likely is it that 10+ people all had no chance to collect any evidence?
In cases of sexual assault or rape? Very high.
Police departments aren't too careful with the relevant physical evidence[1] and the crime is extremely humiliating and traumatic for the victim - especially in previous decades where "she was asking for it" was a valid defence for sexual assault.
[1] https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Police-apologize-for...
Which what the list was originally. You have no alternative how to keep yourself safe - except maybe don't trust any man ever which is even more unfair and would cost me too much.
These two principles are the foundation of our justice system. If only people would actually follow what is already written into law…
If Person A accuses Person B of something, "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't really get you anywhere. If you say Person B is innocent, that means you're saying Person A is guilty—of bearing false witness.
If you're going to accuse someone, you harm yourself and case if you do not stand up. The one exception would be if you go to a newspaper/site, they do their due diligence, and backup your claims.
One user published a private correspondence. Sure, that was shitty on that person's end, but nothing done by the other contributors is wrong, unless you consider talking to a colleague about your (alleged) experiences a public accusation.
So the scope of the defamation cause of action is not necessarily limited to a single participant. Anyone who put forth false information may also be liable. It’s like the article says, one of the questions is, what defines publication.
That doesn't really get into what kind of medium is used or if any buttons that say "Publish" were pushed in the process.
It probably all hinges on the potential damage to the plaintiff, and how the subpoena would help the plaintiff pursue their case.
If there’s an audit trail that can pin down who typed which line in the spreadsheet, the subpoena would likely be limited to the persons saying things that allegedly defame the plaintiff. But if not, I can see the argument that everyone who participated needs to be deposed to discover who made the statements about the plaintiff. There is some nuance to how the doc was shared (link vs. invitation vs. login required).
It’s likely the discovery will be filed under seal to protect those disclosing truthful statements. It may also turn out a special master is appointed to decide who gets to see what portions of the discovery.
Or the subpoena could be quashed.
Freedom of speech is not going to be good for everyone. It will hurt people. It will cause people to believe things without hearing all sides of the story. It will allow a lie to travel halfway around the world before the truth puts it pants on. We want freedom of speech despite all this risk, because we believe it has a power to improve society in a way that simply cannot be done by a censor that makes sure that all speech is good for society in its eyes.
As much as I believe that people should be able to speak their mind, I don't believe people should have legal protection of spreading false information. As we become more interconnected, the risks become too great. I'll defend freedom of speech as much as I can, but I'm not going to defend the ability for someone to lie or make false claims they know are false.
I think you'd change your tune if I took your public information and added it to this list. Maybe you wouln't notice, but I would be mad as hell if this happened to me. Based on what I found of you, I could write up a Medium with information I got from your website and a bit of research on MIT's website saying that nobody should work with you for X or Y because of what you did in College. I'm not calling for anybody to harass you, but it would be a stain on your reputation. In this case, I believe you should be able to sue me or Medium in order to find out who is making these claims against you.
If you really think you'd trust the Catholic hierarchy of the 1600s to fairly decide what's verifiably false, we have vastly different understandings of the reason to declare rights like the freedom of speech. I see it as a bright line that makes it obvious to everyone when corrupt and fallible governments are making decisions they shouldn't be making.
I think our (the US) defamation laws are pretty reasonable. It provides a huge leeway for free speech but draws the line at lies that damage a private party. If you're going to publish a serious accusation like that, you had better be able to back it up - and if you can't, you should face legal consequences.
I think there's also a distinction here between a good-faith claim with minimal evidence by the nature of the claim (e.g. "this happened between the two of us privately") and a bad-faith claim because there's no evidence because it never happened. I'm not sure how exactly to draw the distinction, but I do think that we shouldn't treat people who genuinely believe a thing happened (whether or not it happened) and are unable to provide evidence as equivalent to people who intentionally made up a claim. I think there are ways to figure out which case you're in, but if not, the principle of "presumed innocent until proven guilty" guides us to not punish either.
(To me "presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" is a check on government power which would otherwise be unchecked and unappealable, a statement about due process of law. I believe in it in this context; I don't believe in it as an ideal of a good society and non-government behavior, the way I believe in freedom of speech as both a legal right and an ideal of a good society, because I don't think a good society should bring everything before the courts.)
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-18/lynch-mob...
Rumors cause real damage.
"Defamation is an area of law that provides a civil remedy when someone's words end up causing harm to your reputation or your livelihood"
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/defamation-slander-l...
I think that's a bare minimum, because otherwise we're de-facto deciding cases by deciding which ones are worth hearing.
People here have been accused of things, and while they may not have been legal accusations, they aren't without career or so cliial ramifications.
This is no different than if a group of men shared a list of women they did or did not want to work with for sexual reasons. If that list came out, it would likely be defamatory and any women seeking to take legal action would likely be supported, as they should be.
Some people are going to jump towards the different respective power of the people involved as justifying the difference. I think that is (or should be) irrelevant when it comes to the basic question here, which is "should someone be allowed to seek legal restitution for harm?".
I don't think I should have presumption of innocence in the privacy of people's minds, even multiple people's minds. OJ Simpson has not had any of his rights violated by people openly believing he did it, because the government does not believe he did it. And for the government to force people to believe differently would be an immense violation of their rights.
Should people act on their beliefs extrajudicially, the government will punish that—after due process and presumption of innocence to the alleged vigilantes, of course.
I can have an opinion that HN user geofft is a <insert horrible thing>. This is my right. However, I cannot go to other people and say that geofft is a <insert horrible thing>, particularly if doing so causes you harm, for example economic/reputational.
I have a hard time seeing how such a list does not cross that line. Except of course if the accusations are true, but they must then be proven to be true.
Yes, you can.
Now, if geofft can prove that it is false, and that you reasonably should have known it was false (and the standard may be higher depending on subject matter and other context), then you may be liable for defamation.
> Except of course if the accusations are true, but they must then be proven to be true.
No, in the US, falsity is an element of defamation where, as in the other elements of the tort (rather than defenses against liability) the burden of proof is in the plaintiff, not the defendant. The offended party must prove the statement false. As well as proving the negligence of the one publishing it with regard to the truth.
If you don't get a right to state your side, who cares if you're presumed innocent. The only evidence seen may indicate you're guilty because not all evidence is available.
If you lie about someone, you bare the consequences of that decision. That is not an attack on freedom of speech, it is part of the same framework.
Any freedom of speech notion that frees people from consequences would only encourage lying and vendettas, and negate the true power of free speech, which is to let ideas out so that we can collectively muddle our way to a better answer.
If this suit is successful, it will set a chilling precedent: That no conversation on the Internet may be considered legally private, and that any negative conversations may run the risk of a lawsuit-enforced doxxing.
And yes, there is no privacy for criminal acts ("we just shared this child porn privately, it's none of your business" doesn't really fly...)
This is a strange argument to apply to the first few users, sharing a document with one or two friends.
I should have been more clear: Legally private as opposed to publicly published, not as in private from the law.
Person A adds your name to a list and you'll never know that that's why Person B tossed your resume in the trash. That's horrifying. And in the UK at least, illegal https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/legal-qa-blacklisting/
There's also some added complexity given the context: As the failure of the legal system in addressing sexual assault and harassment is responsible for both the necessity of this list and the "guilty until proven innocent" atmosphere that causes it to have impact, it seems questionable to use that selfsame system to punish the workaround developed (the list).
Please don't conflate the UK laws about blacklisting - which come from a time of vigorous anti-union activism in the construction industry that prevented men from working in any company in their industry for many years (and led to the creation of UK laws about data protection) - with this small private spreadsheet.
The linked article on Scribd says that that was the purpose of the list.
a time of vigorous anti-union activism
"They're not union members, this is, umm, some other list" won't fly in front of any judge.
----
I can't reply because I'm "posting too fast" so here is my reply here:
I'm familiar with the case. And so there is no doubt: those who have actually committed crimes mentioned on the spreadsheet should be in jail. But anonymous blacklists are not the way to get justice for anyone, they are too open to misuse.
This was a long running, extensive, campaign
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/27/on-the-black...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklist_(employment)#UK_Blac...
It should be noted that in this hypothetical, I suspect the list would have much less impact - such a document could be easily forged. While the same is true of the actual list, the context of the #metoo movement and the causes behind it lead to much-increased plausibility.
The fact it was being hidden among a secret group doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, it simply changes the scope.
If one lies about a person in a one on one conversation with a close friend, he or she could be sued for defamation.
This has nothing to do with "on the Internet". On the contrary, there's lots of suggestions here and elsewhere that "on the Internet" should be an ad hoc nullification machine that sweeps away and all legal precedent that don't comport with the cyberpunk ethos of slashdot in its heyday.
Come to think of it, now it's even spreading beyond "on the Internet". I've seen the term "doxxing" used to refer to a bona fide newspaper printing the name of a person that physically attended a rally. That's not doxxing. That's journalism and it's been going on long before Vint Cerf was a twinkle in his father's eye.
Section 230 meanwhile protects electronic publishers from being sued civilly for the what users of their services write. This is important because under defamation law one who repeats a libel is equally liable as the original speaker.
There’s two possibilities that I see: a) most likely the boring traditional reasons to quash a subpoena (e.g. too burdensome) or b) as a long shot one of the journalist shield laws.
and hmm daily (they're new) has a piece on the sue-er just today: https://hmmdaily.com/2018/10/14/who-is-stephen-elliott/