Twitter 'troll' to pay six-figure sum
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
everything is a negotiation
Edit: 1 downvote today and now I can't respond
I wonder where that came from.
The plaintiff is a radio presenter, and it's easy to Google him.
It's one thing to make a personally defamatory accusation.
It's something else to launch a high profile libel trial with alleged political overtones in a very tense and scarred part of the world with recent riots.
Clearly, we're not going to get the full details of this story.
If we do not include NI, then we are just Great Britain.
Most of us are confused about it too.
The Western European Archipelago is a complex place.
By the way, any news on the Scottish independence thing?
FYI the term "unionist" refers to those in NI who want the union with Britain to be maintained, not as someone looking in from outside would assume those who want a union with Southern Ireland. Those are "nationalists".
"...have been in Norther Ireland from the 1600s."
Not that it matters to anyone, but the Plantation of Ulster would likely be considered a war crime under article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention.
Well, probably not, given that none of the states who were, or whose territory was, involved were parties to Geneva Convention (IV) of 1949 at the time.
The people of Northern Ireland disagree, and we ought to leave it to them.
The Angles are not French nor were the Saxons Germans but both were Germanic, specifically Nordic, coming from what is now Denmark.
There were "French" who ruled Britain called the Normans, from Normandy, which was also settled by Scandinavians and mixed with Franks (Germanics) and Gallo-Roman (post-Romans) (explaining why they spoke French.)
England is clearly not, since Northern Ireland is a separate country in the UK, not a colony run by the government of England.
After ~400 years its hard to say the UK, is, either, unless you want to say most of the Earth is occupied, often occupied territory of countries that no longer even have a notional government, and often occupied by people who are detached from the government that initiated the occupation (which may itself have ceased to exist.)
I am assuming good faith here but there are para militaries on both sides that make Trumps most headbanging supporters look like boy scouts.
Their idea of "legitimate political criticism" goes a bit further than you would like.
Guess the comment strife is to be expected.
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I get a feeling that the light is only being shed on the side of the story which makes the "victim" look like an alpha male. All this "message" and "tracing" crap.
I wonder how this "troll" was "traced". Specially trained Twitter-hound? You don't just "trace" people on the internet.
They way I see it (the way the article depicts the situation), they very well knew who could be the troll, and simply threatened the offender:
> There was immediate contrition and categoric statements of regret, with the individual pleading for anonymity due to his expressed personal security concerns
People usually say things like that when there is a presence of an immediate danger to their well-being.
I mean, fair enough, you play with the bull you get the horns. But don't make it look like a triumph of justice accompanied with an honourable act of mercy. You just blackmailed six figures out of a person for sending texts.
Look up Kurt Eichenwald. He found and sued an anonymous Twitter troll who send him a GIF "you deserve a seizure" in 2017. I'm not sure exactly how, I think the authorities helped him, so Twitter just might've gave them the information.
I mean, there's doxxing, which is often effective, or getting a court to issue a subpoena to Twitter for an IP that you can then go subpoena an ISP for.
> The BBC radio and TV presenter traced the identity of the person who was behind an online campaign against him.
The wording in the article can be seen as the man and his colleagues did all the tracing of a completely random internet-troll themselves. Not only that sounds ridiculous, but also falls in line with the display of power I mentioned.
I'm not sure why. Doxxing is quite easy to do in many cases.
Upload a photo that's geotagged, have an unusual name, analysis of your network of friends/followers, linkages to other social profiles, etc.
I'm assuming a perfect offender here, who is sitting on a throwaway account, on a burner phone, and behind a VPN or three, all via public WiFi spot. Why? Because it makes sense, but most importantly because the article leaves a lot to the imagination, especially using the terminology such as "troll".
These are very silly assumptions, IMO.
I've seen an enormous number of trolly comments directed at public figures via long-running Facebook accounts under what appear to be real names. My local legislator gets harassed incessantly by a local business owner I've encountered in person.
If someone has set up that much opsec just to post abuse, they definitely know they're doing something wrong. Few vulnerable activists have that level of security.
I wonder if this might have been someone famous for whom 6 figures is expensive but not worth the PR damage?
It doesn't have to be cash in the bank -- take out debt, remortgage your house, sell your car, borrow from friends and family, etc.
Who's going to jail in this situation? It's not criminal and we don't have debtors' jails here in the UK.
Disclaimer - not speaking for myself, employer, or previous work in the armed forces.
This is in Northern Ireland - being outed for a political disagreement on Irish Nationalism vs Unionist sentiment goes way beyond mere "PR damage" and may easily threaten life and limb. (see The IRA, The Troubles, Good Friday Agreement, and the current debate of the GFA brought on by Brexit)
How can the people stay informed about potential abuse when the press omits the most important part?
Twitter will sell you out to the bbc?
The BBC in northern Ireland is pushing unionist views and the BBC will crush anyone who calls them out.
Don't mess with the BBC?
Use a vpn and/or tor?
Without the actual story it becomes an abuse of power story. A bully pushing around the little guy.
If it were racist, sexist or homophobic we would have about heard that. The lack of message is very telling.
> This should be a warning to all trolls
This is not taking any position on the underlying dispute (which is apparently about Northern Ireland politics [0]), nor is it a criticism of or specific to the BBC.
[0] This Reddit discussion (probably) isn't about the accusation that allegedly was defamatory (that's not public knowledge AFAIK), but I think illustrates the character of the dispute, between the Twitter user and the BBC presenter:
>"His Nolan guest analysis showed nationalist views are represented 6% of the time while unionist views get 65% of the airtime. That's gone from Twitter. Does anyone have a copy?" ("His" refers to "@PastorJimberoo1, @PastorJimberoo3")
https://old.reddit.com/r/northernireland/comments/nmzp90/wha...
~~~~~
[very late EDIT]: I've found one of the allegedly libelous claims. In the Irish Times, the Twitter user is reported as saying (through an attorney)
>"I also set up a change.org petition against Mr Nolan, which had been based entirely on false and defamatory allegations, with the aim of undermining and damaging his professional reputation."
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/twitter-user-t...
There's clear evidence (from searching social media, from multiple directions: @username + 'petition', or stephan nolan + 'petition', &c.) that the referenced petition is this one, which asks the BBC to cancel Stephen Nolan's program:
https://www.change.org/p/bbc-the-bbc-ni-nolan-show-should-be... (is this link dead for everyone or just me?)
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Y0T0IQ...
So, one of the claims that's conceded as defamatory is (to my inference, drawn from the above):
>"For example, on 3rd February 2021, the show provided a platform for an unelected representative of illegal proscribed paramilitary organisations to threaten violence relating to the NI Protocol. This is highly irresponsible and risks inflaming tensions which could lead to violence. However this is not a unique example and the show regularly platforms unelected representatives and apologists for paramilitary organisations."
For even further confirmation: here's the BBC singling out this petition as defamatory, back in Feburary:
>"THE BBC has said an online petition campaigning for the cancellation of The Stephen Nolan Show is an attempt to “smear and censor” its journalism."
>"The petition, which passed 10,000 signatures over the weekend, claims the award-winning BBC Radio Ulster programme “seeks to stir sectarian tensions for ratings”."
>"A statement accompanying the online campaign cites an interview broadcast on Radio Ulster on February 3 2021 with “an unelected representative of illegal proscribed paramilitary organisations”, where it claims threats of violence were made."
>"It is understood the comments relate to the interview with the chair of Loyalist Communities Council (LCC), David Campbell on the Northern Ireland Protocol, where he told Mr Nolan: "If it comes to the bit where we have to fight physically to maintain our freedoms within the UK, so be it.""
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2021/02/1...
For mainstream news publications, headlines are generally designed to be technically neutral but still as attention-grabbing as possible. After all, every publication needs to get readers to click.
So this is just standard practice, the BBC isn't doing anything journalists with high standards consider to be wrong.
In the US at least, it's categorically impossible for this fact pattern to be defamatory -- regardless if the claims are true or false. You can't tortiously mislead an intelligent person by discussing a TV program *that you've both watched*.
I remember this same line from the CNN Trump WWE GIF guy - the cases are different, for one this is a legal case and it being in the UK. Here is what CNN said in that story[1]:
CNN is not publishing “HanA*holeSolo’s” name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.
CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.
Exactly when does this kind of behavior become blackmail? How remorseful do you have to continue to be so the corporation threatening to dox you doesn't? A lot of people will say a name alone is not doxing, but the safety concerns are real when there's potentially thousands of people that would hurt you, seeking out the rest of your details. It seems these media companies have near unlimited power to brazenly admit to this, under the excuse of supposed public interest in the identity of private citizens. The identities aren't even relevant to their respective stories.
It should go without saying that defending the post content specifically is not the point, and can easily flip between political ideologies as years go by and this kind of media behavior is left unchecked.
[1]: https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/04/politics/kfile-reddit-user-tr...
I believe that depending on the situation and the individual or individuals allegedly responsible for these defamations, their identity might be very relevant. In the UK case, it seems it was someone noteworthy and rich enough that settling the case while paying 6 figures in damage was cheaper than the PR nightmare that would come with his identity being revealed.
Also, keep in mind that we live during times where cancel culture is raging very strong on social media, and people that make this claims can very easily lose their careers over stupid things they say online. I would say it is quite likely that the individuals themselves asked for anonymity in cases, and the attacked parties granted this so long as they don't repeat their behavior.
"His Nolan guest analysis showed nationalist views are represented 6% of the time while unionist views get 65% of the airtime. "
I suppose saying such things in North Ireland is like criticizing the Chechen President Kadyrov in Russia - you get very specific people visiting you and "explaining" to you that you have to apologize, and you do happily apologize publicly after that, very similar like the supposed "troll" did here.
One can also notice how all the wording around that settlement is all about threats to any future "trolls", and with the "personal security" words present in the context the message is hardly can be made more clear.
You'll note, they consider a comment from another journalist calling him a provo (Provisional Irish Republican Army) being close to a serious threat of causing harm.
https://twitter.com/squinteratn/status/1364596254509047815
A subthread of note on the above thread - https://twitter.com/GregoryRasputin/status/13645841898200965...
You mean harassers and bullies from hexbear AKA chapotraphouse who target radical feminists? Yes, it's leftists attacking women who disagree with them.
Arguably, she created the "donut twitter" faction - which grew past the bot accounts she controlled.
Though I'm sure this tactic is used by every political leaning to some extent. I think her example is particularly egregious because she is being funded by the DNC apparatus - not just a lone wolf.
Yes, they attack to both sides, but their anti-right operations are pretty transparent. Their anti-leftist operations tend to be clandestine, presumably because DNC funds used to attack "their own" voters would be politically toxic.
Is there evidence of bot accounts specifically? Or is it unclear if its bots (network of accounts managed by one or few people) or a crowd of tribalist low-information angry people? Often hard to tell them apart, and a successful former often breeds the later, so I think it can be challenging to determine conclusively.
"Bot" has also increasingly (and incorrectly IMO) been used as a pejorative for belligerent human trolls, which further obfuscates this discussion.
Would love to see a source about chapo bots - google isn't turning up anything for me. I find these sorts of social media propaganda operations fascinating.
I kind of feel that in a case where there are many accounts using identical text (which is too long to be identical by coincidence) (e.g. in replies to something), it is probably fair to call these bots, even though one can’t rule out the possibility that the automation is as small as just copying and pasting the same text into different accounts + something to open windows as different accounts viewing the same tweet.
Like, maybe that setup wouldn’t strictly count as bots, but really only because it hasn’t been automated as much as it could be while having the same result.
So, I think it is probably fair to call that observable-phenomenon “bots” even though it might not always strictly be bots?
But I agree that a group of paid astroturfers(/trolls?) who are writing different things, probably shouldn’t be called “bots”, even if they each use multiple accounts (provided that they aren’t semi-automatically saying the same things from the different accounts).
I do think that the concept of sock puppets probably captures much of the idea that “bots” is inappropriately extended to, and in a sense applies to many of the kinds of bots that people are talking about in this context (bots pretending to be many people, rather than a bot which is up-front about being a bot).
So, maybe talking about “socks” would be a good substitute for when some are talking about “bots” when they don’t really care if they are actually bots?
Copy-paste reply bots are clearly "bots" IMO - but these seem to be falling out of favor because pointing out many identical replies tends to be a very effective "dunk" on the idea they are promoting.
Someone found screenshots Sally Albright's tooling in a support request: she had ~50-100 different accounts with unique identities. She could post replies to a given tweet from multiple different accounts from a single page. However, liking and retweeting each others replies could be fully automated (with some randomization of timing and which accounts are used).
Albright has claimed that the accounts she managed were originally owned by people who gave her control of them. I am incredulous, particularly because some accounts were identified as using a dead person's image with a different name. But there is the possibility that she was given the impression by whoever provided these accounts to her that these were 'real' accounts where the owners consented to have them used in this manner.
It gives the capability for a single person to seem like they are a crowd of like minded people all in agreement on social media. I believe this model of automated likes/retweets but manual replies is the most common (and pernicious) method used today - practically impossible to prove without data outside the platform it is occurring.
I would prefer things that don’t have any significant automation to them be called something related to sockpuppets than bots, but sockpuppet is unwieldy because it is much longer, both in speech and in writing, so if there is no abbreviation for “sockpuppet”/“sockpuppet master” which is convenient, easily understandable, and feels right to use, then I guess that could be justification enough to call them “bots” despite there being little automation to it.
Regardless, I think the big issue is how people can use these techniques to massively overrepresent how common certain views are compared to other views, regardless of whether it uses any automation. (Because of this, when I make multiple accounts on some service which I keep separate from one-another, which isn’t often, I try to say in my user profiles roughly how many other accounts I have on the service, to avoid contributing to this problem. This has only come up on one website for me though.)
(Also many-account auto-liking would qualify as “being bots” in the narrow sense IMO even if the tweets were all manual. And automation certainly makes the problem bigger.)
But if I say "seaish is a pedophile and went to Asia for rentboys" then that's quite another thing (and these were among the claims that were made).
Not that the Twitter harassment of women in particular isn't an issue though; but I don't think it's really on the same level.
It would come off as less aggressive and less directed at the parent, which with such an accusation, even as an example, is rather jarring.
Talking about damages being paid, as the headline does, is especially indicative of the legal context.
So a guy hits a triple, should I then say, "wow that guy hit a home run" because in business meetings "hitting a home run" means "doing a good job".
Or can we agree that when talking about baseball we probably shouldn't use the term home run to mean good job because that would be incorrect in this context specific setting.
Well, using the word damages in the general sense but in relation to a legal case is the same thing as calling a triple a home run. It's wrong, because the context makes it wrong.
1) The word "troll," for example. That invokes a specific meaning of an individual who deliberately provokes strife for the sake of it. A heated disagreement may be deeply unpleasant for one or both parties, but we do not normally understand the actions of either party to be "trolling."
2) The word "damages" is generally taken to mean compensation decided by a judge or jury following a verdict. It appears that this was an out of court settlement without admission of liability. There can be many reasons apart from genuine liability for which a party may opt to settle.
I don't know anything about UK law and editorial standards. However, I would always expect a news outlet targeting the general public to use the common meanings of words, instead of abiding by the nuanced jargon of whatever field they are covering. It's the same reason I don't get mad when newspapers use the word hacker to mean criminal.
If it was "settle to pay for damages" would that make it okay?
How about "settle to pay for the damages caused?"
I love being pedantic as much as the next guy, but the government doesn't get to define what words mean.
Where did government defining things come into play? That seems to be a strawman you constructed:
> websites do not have to use the legal definitions of words
No, they don't. They're still misleading if they use words misleadingly.
In the headline, on the other hand, there's no context at all to suggest a settlement, which is why the commenter called it misleading.
"Rather than fight the claims against the Sun in court, when they would have been set out in more detail in front of a judge, Murdoch’s company has instead agreed to pay substantial damages to settle the case. "
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/10/sun-publisher-...
Since this is mostly just a terminological issue, I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27700866.
Why would you not pay something that you settled?
People don't do that - because they wanted to settle to avoid the court case. If you didn't pay you'd go straight into a court case.
Likely they already gave evidence of ability to pay as part of the discussions.
What you're talking about is court awarded damages which doesn't apply here as that's not what we're talking about.
I think that it is good that someone got to own up for the turdslinging they do online, but why are we ok with platforms that aren’t held accountable for the “systematic dissemination of false and defamatory allegations” they enable? What if you don’t have BBC lawyers and resources behind you when you or your little company is targeted?
I know this may be a little too Scandinavian for some HN users, but I simply don’t get why we don’t hold the social media platforms accountable for the content that gets posted to them. We have laws and bureaucracies in place to govern traditional media, exactly because the two world and the Cold War showed us what propaganda is capable of, and yet, we let these new platforms do whatever they want?
Maybe that would break Social Media, because their automatic moderation wouldn’t be up to the task, but so what? The way things are moving forward, the platforms claim to have upped their moderation, but as long as they aren’t actually held accountable by any democratic institution, they will still mainly be moderated by the advertising industry and that’s just not not what’s in public interest.
I know Donald Trump is a touchy subject to bring up. But why was he banned when he was? Shouldn’t he either have been de-platformed long ago, or not at all? Sure was convenient for the companies to do so when they did, wasn’t it? I’m personally happy that I haven’t heard a single thing about American republicans in 2021, but I still think it’s a democratic issue that it is a select few tech-billionaires that can remove someone like Donald Trump from my life and not any form of public institution.
It all goes back to the lack of moderation and the lack of consequences for these Social Media platforms. Yeah, one “ systematic dissemination campaign” was stopped because the BBC protects its journalists, but how many go unpunished?
What I found interesting was the spectacle of Mark Zuckerberg in front of congress. And yet no action whatsoever has come from it.
I think part of the issue is that the very people who could push for legislation (the voters) are also the unwitting products of these companies (sold to their real customers the advertisers).
So the manipulation has gone so deep and been so effective the majority of people aren’t realizing what’s happening.
This is largely due to the fact that DT is, frankly, an idiot.
He was still the president on Jan 10. The American President has PLENTY of ways to get their message out... if they want to. Trump refused to adapt to changing circumstances.
For one remove anonymity from social media. That in itself should clean up half this mess with existing laws.
What I don’t get is this idea that we shouldn’t learn from our mistakes because the #1 thing is to hold onto some kind of immutable ideal. Isn’t that why we continue to have legislation despite constitutions having been already written? That the world changes and thus government should change with it?
And it should also enable going after people with unpopular opinions even more.
And preventing people from spreading disinformation doesn't mean that the disinformation will magically go away. It's just that the only people allowed to spread disinformation will be the government and the capitalists. And you will be punished if you call them out on it.
I see this touted a lot. But supporting trolls to spread disinformation online isn’t protecting free speech. Free speech protection comes from society and it’s laws. Not anonymity.
The scale of content being posted on social media is such that this liability makes running a social media platform effectively impossible. All user generated content would have to be manually reviewed before being posted. This would be prohibitively expensive.
As for the Trump ban, freedom of speech also means freedom from compelled speech. The government can't force a store to sell a particular newspaper, or force a newspaper to run a particular story. Same applies to internet websites. If you have a blog with a comments section, the government can't force you to host certain comments.
I personally don’t find this argument particularly compelling when the entity in question is a platform that arguably has more influence over public discourse than most (all?) governments.
There is an enormous difference between someone’s blog and a web site that is used as a communication platform by politicians and world leaders, and which has a user base numbering in the millions or even billions.
Since when is "operating responsibly would be too expensive" an excuse that we allow businesses to use to avoid any responsibility for the damage they cause? If your business model can't function at scale without incurring enormous externalities to your society, it doesn't have a right to exist.
If you kept doing it but the school knew you were doing it and not only left it up, but put copies on bulletin boards across their entire global network, and never asked you to stop, maybe they have to take some responsibility.
The school might not even know whether the content is defamatory. If someone posts an accusation of sexual assault and the accused denies it what happens? Does it have to immediately side with the accused?
I won’t miss social media, will you?
And I say this as someone who uses Facebook, YouTube and Instagram quite a lot for Blood Bowl hobby purposes, so it’s not that I dislike their platforms as such, but it’s hard to deny that they aren’t healthy for society. At least not if we want to continue valuing experts and science and not popularity and populism.
Why would Facebook let you talk about politics on their platform if you could defame a politician or celebrity and Facebook was on the hook? What's cheaper, banning you and/or algorithmically controlling your speech, or paying major dollars to an employee in a high cost of living who wants deep benefits just to review your speech.
I mean they'd need law staff reviewing every potentially defamatory post.
They'd honestly need lawyers reviewing every post made on social media, or else they could be sued into oblivion.
I can't imagine how any company could run a business allowing people to speak anything remotely close to freely online if that business is financially liable for the truth and veracity of every statement made.
What would happen is social media would turn into a situation where the only people allowed to post would be the Blue Checkmarks -- those who the service verifies as being Goodthinkers who won't create liability, and who may have signed an agreement with the company absolving the company of that liability.
I just can't imagine how free speech could survive online if the big guy could make the newspaper pay for a letter to the editor.
And we'll finally see who the blessed of the FB or Twitter or <service> truly are.
1) Pirate media in open and flagrant violation of the legal requirement to ensure the legality and veracity of all user content. In which case the government will shut it down or admit non-enforcement of the bogus law.
2) Or they are soon-to-be-former media sued into oblivion because someone lied on their service in a manner which the service is liable for. The service either vets the statements or pays the damages.
This is before we consider the implications of a hostile actor using this mechanism to tank businesses. Write bots to spread misinformation, lies and slander. What are you going to do, sue some unknown operator ten thousand miles away? Good luck. The service will pay damages for it and they'll keep paying until they restrict free speech sufficiently.
What you are describing is the dream scenario for me.
It’s not free speech when it has no consequences, because the consequence of total free speech has proven to make every reasonable voice leave. This is exactly why the comments on political social media posts are so terrible that neither you or I bother to read them.
What’s funny about this is we all act like Facebook/Twitter/YouTube are the only ways that politicians can talk to the public, yet somehow politicians have long campaigned well before the Internet existed, let alone these 3 specific platforms. It’s not like news media has stopped writing about Trump (in fact big news just yesterday about the trump org & taxes). Plus the news media was writing about how Trump is now on some new Gab-alternative, to which Gab is suggesting he’s not on there because they want to allow anti-Semitism and Kushner blocked it. So new platforms easily can come up and acquire various demographics.
It’s also not like Facebook etc is the only source for systemic dissemination of propaganda. Trump used to have extremely frequent calls with Fox News hosts, for example, which commands a very large set of the GOP eyeballs. Probably more than Twitter could ever hope for.
All of this is effectively protected by the first amendment. You could revoke 230 which would quickly lead to mass moderation or complete changes of platform behaviors/features, but you’d be very hard pressed to find a way to force any news org to shape their messaging.
I use Trump as an example because it’s the example everyone knows. I personally think that he should have been banned when he first broke the rules, but since he wasn’t, then he shouldn’t have been banned at all.
I’m calling for more moderation, but for it to be removed from the hands of a few tech billionaires and put into the hand of the public. Is the social media platforms cannot do this, then I fully support the EU route or making them illegal.
I don’t see that as a free speech issue, as long as we democratically agree on it within the EU because the internet is still there and politicians have, as you point out, campaigned without Facebook. What I do see as a free speech issue is when a very select few non-EU billionaires can dictate who says what and when they do it on their platforms. That’s the most anti-democratic threat we face in the EU right now.
Same as why Hunter Biden stories were being blocked on Facebook as untrue, even though they were true. It made one candidate look bad.
It’s important to remember there is a narrative that stories must fit.
The next Republican candidate will be declared mean, dumb, all-phobic to everyone. Everything they say will be “fact checked” and proven false.
Doesn’t matter who it is. Doesn’t matter what they say, or their actual position. They will be canceled.
We’ve even got studies that show, that Social Media are easily the platforms where you buy the most influence per money spent.
Of course with no oversight and no public record of what gets shown to whom, unlike all other forms of political campaigning in Denmark, we do kind of put our election results in the hands of a single American billionaire.
It’s no secret that I don’t think our elected officials should get off these platforms, but they are obviously not going to do so when they are so powerful mediums, which means we need to regulate them.
I don't know how it is in Scandinavia, but in the US it would almost certainly be difficult to prosecute this. A lot of harassment is simply legal unless you can prove that deliberately false things were said with the intent to harm people -- which is very hard to prove.
Not that these platforms should hold themselves to a legal standard. Indeed, I've said before that it's long past the time for people to be thinking of moderation as an afterthought. New social networks -- even just discussion boards -- need to think from the beginning what kind of conversation they want. Otherwise, there's a very good chance it will be dominated by those who wish to hurt others, because the others will leave.
FB and Twitter are in a rare position where they own the natural monopoly (or, perhaps natural oligopoly) on general social media. You go there because your friends are there. You may want to leave, but you really can't because no other place can offer you the same connectivity even if they have a vastly improved feature set.
I don't really know what can legally be done to rein these two in. The UK is the lowest bar to set on prosecuting trolls, and this case was expensive and rare. It doesn't put trolls on warning because nobody else will have this person's resources. And it's harder everywhere else.
Even if you and I and all our friends left Twitter and FB for greener pastures, as long as they have that oligopoly, we'll still have to live with people using them to defame us. Everybody will know, even if we're not there.
I'm not actually worried about Trump. He was an exception. Let there be an exception for sitting Presidents; I don't care. He's still just one loud asshole. The problem is that anonymous jerks of all kinds can pursue defamation campaigns. They have to work harder to get traction, but they can also be more focused.
They, I think, are the real problem, and I don't really know what to do. I don't know what laws I'd pass even if I could. The vaunted power of the Internet has made it possible to be mean on a scale never before seen, and nothing I've seen in the past gives me a guide to that.
I think that's probably too crude a concept, although you can argue that probably 10% of Twitter needs a lawsuit being horrid people and all.
My own guess is that the ability of social media is strong and subtle enough to avoid any rule you might cook up. Their ability to steer enough votes to win an election is obvious and their own bias is clear.
You're not going to get your relatives to leave Facebook, it's too handy for trading baby pictures, so I have no clue what should be done. There'll always be some sort of editorial control.
The UK has a stricter framework than the US, but I think these cases should happen in the US too.
It's good to see precedent being established for prosecuting those that abuse social media for evil.
I'm interested in who the guilty party is in this case. They can afford a six figure penalty and want to remain anonymous.
But I feel like I run into more cases where UK defamation laws have some absurd outcomes ... and I'm not sure the result is that there's less defamation in the UK.
Though that doesn't imply that defamation has no place in speech laws, nor that the case in question was necessarily abusive.
He taught the dog to respond to the phrase "Do you wanna gas the Jews"
No, your facts are wrong. He taught the dog to perform a nazi salute upon hearing the command Seig Heil, _and_ to bark upon hearing "gas the jews". The description of his video is only a couple of sentences long on Wikipedia.
The first two are related to personal defamation:
* Police horse and dog: people could be arrested for "threatening, abusive or insulting" speech in public at the time. The police, being wankers, overused their discretion on "insulting" speech and so the law was changed in 2013 to remove "insulting" as a criterion. https://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/16/you-may-now-call-a-poli...
The rest fall under hate speech:
* Seig Heil dog: fined £800 for hate speech for posting a video of the dog to YouTube. He said "gas the Jews" to the dog 23 times. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dog-nazi-salute-sentence-mark-m...
* 19 y/o Snoop Dogg lyric: 8 week curfew, fined £600. She added "kill a snitch n** and rob a rich n**" to her Instagram bio. https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/woman-wh...
* The guy repeatedly left the cartoons in airport _prayer-rooms_. "Other [images] linked Muslims to attacks on airports." 6 month suspended prison sentence (not sure about the length of the pre-trial detention), fined £250, 100hrs unpaid work (community service?). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/854961...
I don't necessarily agree with the criminalization, but these 3 instances were all people doing shitty things I don't think they should have done. Downplaying the parts people actually got angry about makes it seem like you're complaining about the people getting angry about the actions rather than the trials and punishments.
Any news on Simon Singh and the British Chiropractic Association or the Church of Scientology?
* Simon Singh & BCA: appeals court changed Singh's "statement of fact" to "fair comment" (opinion) in 2010. The BCA then withdrew the libel lawsuit. The "Libel Reform Campaign" used this case to push for a 2013 act which modified libel laws.
* I don't know which Scientology libel suit you're asking about. The most recent news item I could find was a 2015 chilling effect where a local broadcaster and publisher rethought showing/printing "Going Clear" because Northern Ireland wasn't covered by the 2013 libel law. The latest actual libel suit I could find was a 6 year libel case where: (ex-Scientologist) Bonnie Woods started a phoneline for other dissenters, the Scientologists printed leaflets calling her a "hate campaigner" and distributed them in Hood's neighborhood, Hood sued, the Scientologists counter-sued, Hood eventually won a settlement.
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/21/394273902/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_in_the_United_King...
> Police horse and dog: people could be arrested for "threatening, abusive or insulting" speech in public at the time. The police, being wankers, overused their discretion on "insulting" speech and so the law was changed in 2013 to remove "insulting" as a criterion.
Yes, this is consistent with my point. Abuse of the spirit of any law is a given, and it's part of what goes into assessment of whether a law is wise or not. It would be great if we could pass laws that could identify and laser-target "bad" speech in perpetuity with no potential for abuse, but that's just now how law works and proneness to abuse is a central part of the criticism.
> [count dankula and snoop Dogg lyric]
In what way my summary misleading? I think perhaps we have different notions of what's relevant here. Training a dog to react to "gas the jews" isn't categorically different from training a dog to respond to seig Heil with a nazi salute. In fact, it's the exact same joke.
> The guy repeatedly left the cartoons in airport _prayer-rooms_.
I was mistaken about this story, thanks for clarifying. I'm not sure where I got the impression that it occurred in restrooms.
>Downplaying the parts people actually got angry about makes it seem like you're complaining about the people getting angry about the actions rather than the trials and punishments.
This is a pretty wild assumption about ny motivations. Your descriptions are as easily described as "downplaying" the relative triviality of the acts: in the case of Dankula, you mention "gas the jews" without mentioning that it was a trigger word for another dog trick (use/mention distinction), and in the case of the snoop Dogg lyric, you leave out 1) that "she copied the lyrics from a friend’s Instagram account, which were used by thousands of people to pay tribute to Frankie Murphy" and 2) the complaints centered entirely on use of the word "nigga", which is even more ridiculous than the violent content (as her lawyer pointed out, should Jay-Z be fined for using the same language during a Glastonbury performance?)
Though I don't think the reason you left these out is because you're trying to mislead: your focus was "why people were angry", and mine was "how absurd the incidents are to the sensibilities of citizens of a country with robust speech protections". Whether or not people get angry is immaterial to my point, which is the exact opposite of caring enough about their anger to downplay it. The absurdity comes from the idea that it's workable for the state to be coordinating speech at such a ridiculously low level.
> Though I don't think the reason you left these out is because you're trying to mislead: your focus was "why people were angry", and mine was "how absurd the incidents are to the sensibilities of citizens of a country with robust speech protections".
Yes, I agree that every summary will necessarily leave parts out. I disagree with your editorial judgment on how to summarize these incidents as evidence to whether the courts are going too far:
- Police horse and dog: missing context that the law was changed almost a decade ago to remove "insulting" as a criterion because these instances were so absurd.
- Nazi dog: did not mention that it's a public video, did not mention the quotes which were most important to the court ruling it "Hate Speech". You're focused entirely on "it's a joke" as an explanation to why the quotes are okay in context.
- Lyrics: did not mention the text of the lyrics, only the fact that they were quotes. When you quote something, you're giving it a different context. For example, quoting "I'll be back" means different things when one's at a grocery vs when one's stalking someone at their house. Snap Dogg (not Snoop, though that mistake's super understandable) singing the lyric in a song is different from quoting the lyric in a conversation is different from quoting just that lyric in isolation.
- Anti-religious: the venue mattered because it plays a part in whether regular behavior is harassment. This sounds like an honest mistake, but I think the venue drastically changes the situation. One saying "I think X sucks" is different when: one's with some friends; one's discussing X's work with acquaintances; one's on a panel with X at a conference; one's at X's wedding; one sends mail to X's house.
> Whether or not people get angry is immaterial to my point: your focus was "why people were angry", and mine was "how absurd the incidents are to the sensibilities of citizens of a country with robust speech protections".
I think that you left out context which changes "how absurd" these cases are. The first 2 were essentially fixed. The last 3 were all prosecuted under "Hate Speech", but I think you left out the important aspects of those cases which made them count as "Hate Speech". Sometimes the reason why something is illegal is patently absurd and doesn't really to be addressed in the summary, but I don't think this context could be avoided when trying to claim that these 3 speech restrictions were absurd.
I suspect it plays a part in concealing political corruption rather protecting an individuals right to a reputation as pointed out by EU officials a couple of times.
Are you sure about that? It seems pretty out in the open.
Even if what you said is true, would you be willing to spend the money to go to court and try to fight a defamation lawsuit?
Second, defamation suits are public, and often make for juicy headlines. If you really want to silence your critics, dragging them into a public forum to repeat their claims in front of a load of reporters is probably not the best way to do it.
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/21/394273902/...
Your comment seems to fit the profile of Brewdog, a UK based 'craft brewery'. They are known for deliberately courting controversy. The egregious examples include frivolous claims on trademarks, misogyny, bullying, harassment, amongst toe-curling and churlish behaviour, when they appeared on a BBC programme Who's The Boss. The latest 'Gold Can' escapade is another deceptive marketing campaign, which is their raison d'être. The strategy works, as it is doing them no harm and the growth is phenomenal.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/10/brewdog-pun...
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2016/03/brewdog-boss-regre...
You seem to be accusing the person you are responding to of being Brewdog? Or were you trying to say Brewdog uses defamation to silence criticism of their marketing tactics? Or are you trying to promote Brewdog by publicising their deliberate controversies? I just can't figure it out.
There is no such implication on both counts. I am flabbergasted by how you have arrived at your conclusion.
I presume you had a point you were trying to make, but i could not figure out what it was from your comment as written.
I.e. they were suggesting that brewdog, uh, deliberately invites criticism, and then uses that criticism to their advantage by using defamation law.
Court and lawyer support should be free or cheap.
Else you have a bigger problem than "defamation is a great way for those with money to silence dissent and avoid any consequences": all kinds of lawsuits being "a great way for those with money to silence dissent and avoid any consequences".
In an ideal society, a huge corporation and an average Joe should have the same legal representation, quality wise. Of course this means destroying our present norms of elite law firms and bad free counselling assigned by court. Have lawyers on pool as a state service and assign them randomly to cases on either side.
It's also good to see precedents established for people trying to abuse the system:
"Judge tosses frivolous lawsuit by heiress Sulome Anderson seeking to destroy The Grayzone"
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/06/29/lawsuit-sulome-anderson-h...
I don't really see why the US gets this right at all, it's just part of Americas culture where lies and truth are treated as equal and as a result integrity has completely vanished from public discourse. Very visible in how all politicians are treated as 'being the same', which is the logical consequence of this atmosphere of defamation which trolls abuse with impunity. If you can lie without repercussion about everyone, the public cannot distinguish reality from fiction.
For defamation, you need four things: a false statement of fact made to a third party causing actual harm, that demonstrates at least negligence. For public figures, the "at least negligence" rises to "actual malice"; I believe the intention is to prevent public figures from abusing defamation suits.
Note that "lying", saying something that you know to be false or with "reckless disregard" for whether it is false, is pretty much the definition of "actual malice" in this case. You cannot lie without repercussion.
Citation needed I don't think any one on youtube or twitch has the resources or interest in dealing with lies being spread about them.
I can't think of any legitimate reason the law should protect liars at the expense of every one else.
I can't think of any legitimate reason that popular people should be subject to a different set of laws from the rest of us, that seems deeply biased and un fair.
You're advocating for the government to become the arbitrator of true and fiction for private speech. Seems like an absolutely terrible idea to me.
Or maybe they assume that repeating the "false and defamatory allegations" wouldn't be a good idea?
Yes it does, that's exactly what it means.
People disagree on what "free speech" means, on what limits can legitimately be placed on that freedom and by whom, but the implications of "absolutely free" speech are unambiguous.
But I can imagine plenty of things that someone could argue are defamatory which fall into a much grayer area where I believe court involvement isn't warranted. I think this debate will just run in circles until all of the tweets in question are presented.
For public figures, normally you have to demonstrate actual malice to win a defamation case. But there are certain things that are defamation per se, in other words are always considered defamation unless they're true. The list differs per state, but things like calling someone a pedophile is always on it.
Fun fact: saying someone was gay used to be considered defamation per se.
But to me, the problem inherent in defamation (as well as "fake news") isn't that people are able to utter false statements. The real issue is that many people are conditioned to believe that whatever they see or hear is true. Somebody believing something negative is the only thing that might cause harm to another person.
Why do people believe that whatever they read or hear is true? I believe it's because we have active defamation/slander laws, "fact checkers", and other things designed to combat false information. Their very existence and strength is what keeps people conditioned to believe that everything they see is true. And the stronger they get, the stronger that people believe that everything they read is true. It's a feedback loop that worsens the problem it's supposed to solve.
Paradoxically, things like strong defamation laws may worsen the real problem they're ostensibly designed to solve. I strongly believe that the approach that should be taken with things like defamation isn't harsher and harsher punishment, it should be telling everybody that nothing you read online is true and having the weakest possible defamation laws (or even no laws in this regard) to get people to understand that nothing that they see or read should be considered true until they verify it. A society that understands that no facts should be considered true until they verify it would be immune from false information.
Just kidding, but here in the US you have harassment which is usually a criminal matter and then libel/slander. You can pretty much say whatever you want about a public figure like a politician ad long as it isn't threats, unless your AOC cause she thinks saying she has bad hair is a threat. One of the things a lot of people think from being naive is that if people are saying it online and not getting sued then it must me true, which is how some conspiracies spread.