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Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

I think if you are for freedom of speech, this is exactly the sort of speech to disagree with and yet defend. This was a list of people not to work with, not a list of people to actively go after and harass. The list was not maintained by people with government or industry power. A world where you can't speak to others unless it's either a popular idea or a media organization will vouch for your speech is one where individuals don't actually have freedom of speech.

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.

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So, you think it should be perfectly legal for me to circulate a rumor that geofft on hackernews is a pedophile?

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 do, actually. You have no evidence, so spread whatever rumors you like. If you start fabricating evidence then I would like that to be illegal.

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.)

I admire your principled stand but I think you'd be singing a different tune when people start throwing bricks in your window and slashing your tires. Or worse, depending on where you live:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-18/lynch-mob...

Rumors cause real damage.

Freedom of Speech is a great idea, but we constantly draw lines around the idea. I strongly believe you should be able to say something I don't like, you should be able to be critical of the powers that be, but I think in the next few years we're going to see a strong discussion in the US of outlawing willful dissemination of false information. With the advance of tools like Deep Fakes, outrage culture, and the general uptick of "Fake News" we're going to run into this issue. Stuff like this is a precursor I think.

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.

Why the need to outlaw more stuff? Claiming false stuff about people is already illegal - it's called defamation. Which is what allows him to sue.

with Defamation the victim is the only one that has recourse. I would support a blanket law punishing someone is spreading information that know is false. People who say Vaccines can cause autism can't be sued for defamation, but they could get in trouble for knowingly spreading false information.

Sounds like you'd have jailed Galileo. Science, in particular, requires the freedom to go against "what is known to be false".

No... I don't think what Galileo was preaching was verifiablely false.

Can you define that standard? What's the threshold for being verifiably false?

There is overwhelming evidence that contradicts what you are saying, yet you keep preaching the invalidated statements you're making for a reason of malice or attempt to influence someone who doesn't know better.

It was verifiably false in the eyes of the authorities, in their interpretation of the Bible and the deposit of Sacred Tradition. (It was not, as it turned out, verifiably false in the eyes of either scientists or in the eyes of those entrusted with Sacred Tradition 400 years later, but neither of those groups were in power.)

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.

This is a view of freedom of speech that seems odd to me. IMHO, you are free to say anything, but that does not mean you are freed from any and all consequences. You aren't freed from slander or libel laws. You aren't freed from criticism. You aren't freed from being mocked. The freedom of speech that allows you to say X allows everyone else the freedom to attack X, and seek restitution for untruths.

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.

> This was a list of people not to work with

"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...

It's not defamation if it's true.

And that's the problem of a private list. The accused don't get a chance to rebut the accusations, so anyone can fabricate an entry.

And that's why the suit is good. If true, this will come out. If false, that will come out.

Just checking, but you seem to be saying that these alleged rapists MUST ALWAYS have presumption of innocence, but not these women who are clearly defaming people. Is that what you're saying?

No... I'm not really sure where you got that from. I'm saying that if you're accused of something, you should have the chance of addressing that accusation.

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 think if I'm accused of something in court I should have presumption of innocence against the use of the government monopoly on violence.

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.

You seem to be mixing up presumption of innocence, the right to your own opinion and the concept of defamation, largely ignoring the latter.

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.

> 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.

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.

but geoftt has to prove that the comments have caused harm.

Im not sure what I'm saying that is getting people stuck on presumed innocence. I'm specifically talking about the right to defend yourself from accusations. I think that's fundamental to the point of being much more important than being presumed innocent.

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.

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