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.
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?
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.