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Comment by mbg721 | Hacker News Reader

Dissent is only to be tolerated when it's politically convenient. Come on, man.

Dominion will argue defamation in court which will require them to prove ALL of the following: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) harm caused to Dominion.

If Dominion can prove those things to the satisfaction of a judge and jury, they should win. Our justice system is supposed to deter people from breaking the law.

And they have an extra burden: Dominion will probably be ruled to be a public figure, meaning that they will also need to prove that either Giuliani knew the statements were false or he showed "reckless disregard of the truth". But I think they should be able to do that.

What Giuliani was doing wasn't dissent, it wasn't a difference of opinion or anything remotely similar. It was straight up lying. Yes, defamation should be chilled.

Good, then prosecute him for the actual crimes he committed.

I'm confused; you seem to be arguing two opposite positions. You say that a civil defamation lawsuit by Dominion is suppressing dissent, and that Giuliani should be criminally prosecuted for unspecified crimes. You do realize that the latter has a much larger chilling effect, right? It's not consistent to argue against a civil case for being too chilling, and then argue for a criminal case over the same conduct.

> You say that a civil defamation lawsuit by Dominion is suppressing dissent, and that Giuliani should be criminally prosecuted for unspecified crimes

In case someone thinks this is splitting hairs, I fully support Dominion suing Giuliani for his alleged defamation. I would be somewhat horrified at the Attorney General attempting to put him in jail for it, ceteris paribus.

> Good, then prosecute him for the actual crimes he committed.

This is a tort that he actually committed, not a crime, but otherwise that’s what is happening. Not every violation of law is a “crime”.

That's exactly what this is. It's a lawsuit filed by the injured party, alleging defamation. Now a court will hear the evidence and (probably) find Giuliani guilty, because he very clearly engaged in defamation.

If it stands up in court without any goofy procedural arguments, I'm happy with it. That's what courts are for.

Out of curiosity, what is and is not a “goofy procedural argument” in this case?

I would consider something like "the statute applies to telegrams sent within a state, so there is no standing" to be a goofy procedural argument.

Applying the actual text of a law is a goofy procedural argument?

Lying about a company generally isn't a crime (except in restricted circumstances; there are probably scenarios where it could be a securities law issue, say), but a company is absolutely able to take a civil suit against someone who maliciously lies about it.

I realize this thread is flagged, but this reminded me of the recent situation in Thailand and the review on Tripadvisor. Thought I'd share in case you hadn't seen it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/world/asia/thailand-revie...

Oh, yep, I should have caveated that as "lying about a company isn't generally a crime IN DEVELOPED DEMOCRACIES". Some countries do still have in-use criminal libel laws, and the story is different there.

Several US states have criminal libel laws that might protect a company (particularly if the company is a bank or other financial institution, which seem to be the most common to be specifically protected.)

Are there any recent (this century) examples of _successful_ criminal libel actions in the US? I would've thought it'd be fairly clearly unconstitutional.

> Are there any recent (this century) examples of _successful_ criminal libel actions in the US?

This century is very young for laws that were never frequently invoked, but, yes, at least one in Kansas in 2002:

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/941/criminal-li...

I get a sense that these threads are getting worked over with automation.

It’s a bit worrying that total lies about a conspiracy between Dominion and (very much dead) Hugo Chavez to rig an election for Joe Biden is what gets classified as “dissent” these days. I’d normally use a different, eight letter word to describe that.

Defamatory statements draw lawsuits. Nothing terribly new or worrying about that.

>> Dissent is only to be tolerated when it's politically convenient. Come on, man.

> It’s a bit worrying that total lies about a conspiracy between Dominion and (very much dead) Hugo Chavez to rig an election for Joe Biden is what gets classified as “dissent” these days.

I'm not sure if you can really even call this a "classification." It's more of a false equivalency, either made in bad faith or through some sloppy bit of emotional reasoning.

I'm seeing a lot of this kind of thing now (another similar example is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25898393). It's like some people are experiencing certain generalized feelings, then applying charged words to what triggered those feelings without understanding either the words they used or the thing they're commenting on.

> I'm not sure if you can really even call this a "classification."

Probably not, I'm mostly responding snarkily to how deeply conspiracy theories have embedded themselves into the body politic.

More important is the idea that a well formed[0] defamation lawsuit is something that requires public attention and redress. Attempting to call this defamation lawsuit something that is suppressing dissent smacks of a hamfisted attempt to make this lawsuit into something bigger than it actually is. Giuliani and his ideological cohort made a bunch of defamatory statements about a company, and predictably that company is suing for defamation. There's nothing terribly surprising or concerning about that.

0 - Defamation lawsuits can be used to suppress speech, of course. This is exactly why many states now have anti-SLAPP laws on the books. That however does not seem to be an issue in this case, as this lawsuit is at least well formed.

Dissent when it’s politically convenient, is just dissent.

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