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JanSolo

So the question is:

Did they rule for Elon because of some legal technicality?

Or was it because of the exorbitant defamation claim?

Or was it because Elon was correct in his claim?

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I would have ruled for Elon simply because the plaintiff started by telling Elon to stick his submarine where it hurts.

You don't really get to initiate crude insults and then cry to the courts when you get one back in kind.

There's quite a difference between a diver insulting Musk's submarine, and Musk, who is famous and has millions of loyal followers, calling him a paedophile.

No there isn't. Men trade insults like that all the time.

In your experience men publicly declare (in writing) that other men are pedophiles and child rapists who only move to Thailand to have sex with 11-year-olds "all the time"?

Where do you live so I can make sure to never visit there.

May I interest you in seeing the movie "Gran Torino"? Granted, it is a movie, but it wouldn't be funny if there wasn't truth to it.

I've seen it.

If you're referring to the barbershop scene, yes, it does have two men who have a long-established friendship insulting each other - and then when an unknown (to the barber) 3rd party uses the _exact_same_language_ the barber pulls a gun on him.

The lesson you should take from that scene is that what might be acceptable banter between friends is not acceptable public discourse with strangers.

Actual dialog (https://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Gran-Torino.html):

          WALT
          Jesus Christ, Tao, you don't walk
          in and insult a guy. What are
          you, an idiot?

          TAO
          But... but that's what you said.
          That's what you said men say.

          WALT
          Not if you never met the guy. If
          you say that shit to the wrong
          stranger, they'll blow your
          goddamned ---- head off!

He's an American, they have strange notions about free speech and completely disregard the idea of public peace. This is precisely at the heart of the case. No one gets to be the target of a lynchmob when someone tells him to stick a large object up his bum. But someone might well believe that someone moved to Thailand because they have certain proclivities and join the lynchmob.

You'd have a legitimate claim against said lynch mob.

The goal of the law isn't to catch criminals, it's to prevent crime. That's why some countries really come down hard on those that would disrupt the peace.

> In your experience men publicly declare (in writing) that other men are pedophiles and child rapists who only move to Thailand to have sex with 11-year-olds "all the time"?

Would I declare that a specific man I had no knowledge of did that? No. Would I declare that at some point in recent history at least two men have moved to Thailand for the purpose of sexually exploiting children? Yes, because I'm pretty sure it's true. Like, here's two examples from two minutes on Google [0][1] true.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Paul_Neil

1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-paedophile/thai-...

So we're back with the "Locker Room Talk" defence?

What great strides we are taking.

It's fair if you don't like Musk for such statements. That doesn't make it a fit issue for the courts, however.

I don't care about Musk one way or the other. But staging a campaign to deliberately tarnish somebody's reputation without evidence is exactly a matter for the courts and the reason why we have defamation laws in the first place

Generally speaking, I think it's a Really Bad Idea if ultra-wealthy people can literally say anything they want without consequence and use their money/fame etc to terrorize people and destroy their reputation.

Just because "locker room talk" viz two men trading insults isn't a good look, it's a bit much to involve to courts and suggest that you've been hurt to the tune of nearly $200M... especially when you started it.

I guess it comes down to proportionality and if you believe that "your solution is a ridiculous PR stunt" warrants a response of "I'm going to destroy your reputation"

I know that such nuance in conversation is not de rigueur on today's internet.

I absolutely agree that destroying someone's reputation is a ridiculous escalation from the original comment, but 1) the guy's reputation hasn't been destroyed at all (regardless of whether or not that was Musk's intent), and 2) either way, that still doesn't seem like a matter for the courts.

I guess I'm also just so sick of the heavily litigious nature of our society that I have a visceral negative reaction to something like "you were mean to me on the internet so I'm going to sue you for $RIDICULOUS_SUM".

I would say that the amount of damage to his reputation is exactly the sort of thing that the court case is supposed to measure. From this distance and with the facts we have it's hard to tell.

I don't live in the US so maybe you suffer more from litigation fatigue than me. If it were two nobodies trolling it out on twitter I would agree with you - who cares? But Musk's statements are heavily reported internationally and this was in the middle of an internationally-reported event and he chose to go after one of the central figures, both on twitter and in the media.

Characterising that as just being mean on the internet is a little disingenuous imo.

You don't understand the difference between an insult and defamation.

There is also difference between insulting a submarine, and telling someone to stick a submarine where it hurts. That's homosexual innuendo loaded with a phallic reference, about on par with a "pedo" insult.

If he'd said "your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" that would indeed be fighting words.

It's not a homosexual innuendo (or a sexual innuendo at all).

I hope you don't mean to suggest that saying someone is homosexual is on a par with saying that they're a pedophile. The former is not defamatory.

How is this not the consensus? This guy said on national television that Elon musk is a psychopath who has no empathy for dying children — that the submarine was purely a cold and calculated PR stunt. This is the embodiment of defamation. A stupid, brutish thing to say and it’s not factually correct to boot. And then he tops it all off by telling Elon musk he should shove the submarine up his ass. Seriously fuck this guy. In my opinion Elon musk should sue him for defamation.

But nobody cares about Elon musk because hEs RiCh So FuCk HiM

If I was the judge I'd award Musk his legal fees and bill the plaintiff court costs. It was nothing more than a few back and forth schoolyard insults, and had no place being in court.

It shouldn't have gone beyond - "Now both of you boys apologize to each other and shake hands."

I'm glad you're not a judge. It would be awful for a judge to express such emotion and absolutism in the dismissal of even the possibility of harm caused by one of the most famous people on Earth very publicly calling a person a pedophile.

> I'm glad you're not a judge.

I'm glad I'm not, either. I would take no pleasure in punishing people, even those who richly deserve it. I would also be uninterested in hearing a case from two silly people who really should settle it with a mutual apology and a handshake.

Mutual apologies don’t rectify one of the most influential people on earth slandering someone who is decidedly not.

The world would be a lot better off if people settled their differences with a mutual apology and handshake rather than attempting mutual destruction.

Sure. And it’s literally impossible to do so when one of those people is effectively beyond any consequence for anything that they do.

Peasants don’t get to shake hands with barons. Ours have a legal system to (sometimes, not always) even things out just a little, though.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. That's factually correct, and, IMO, subjectively correct also.

It's a bit messed up that Musk then hired a sketchy PI to dig up dirt on the guy, but that also is not defamation.

It's a bid ludicrous to suggest that you're owed $190M because someone insulted you on the internet (after you insulted them).

Clearly the part about it being subjective is a reasonable source of disagreement. Personally, I think the notion that insulting somebody somehow automatically clears that person from defamation charges regardless of how they respond is ridiculous (this is a comment on what you and the parent post appear to be implying, not on Elon's case).

I get what you're saying, but when I look at this case, all I can think is, that some guy sued another guy for being mean on the internet, and that's just dumb.

It's tempting to look at the players involved, especially Musk, who has a history of being a loose cannon and a bit of a dick, and want to punish him for his misdeeds, but I just don't see it that way.

Because it "pedo guy" is an insult, which is protected speech.

MMmmm. Would have thought that was not a defense for him seeing as he then went on to call him a child rapist:

> “I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what’s actually going on and stop defending child rapists, you fucking asshole,” Musk wrote in the first message. “He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-...

Musk apparently hired an 'investigator' who turned out to be a conman who came up with this tidbit.

He had no actual knowledge that the guy wasn't a child rapist, and he did use reasonable care to verify his "facts", so it wasn't willful defamation.

>and he did use reasonable care to verify his "facts"

No, he made the claim before he hired the investigator.

Which claim? The one with specifics like the age of his child bride? Or the "pedo guy" tweet?

Both, I believe.

> He had no actual knowledge that the guy wasn't a child rapist

What?! I can't even..

More importantly, he had no actual knowledge that the guy _was_ a child rapist

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