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Comment by temporalparts | Hacker News Reader

> you can sue them and probably win

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-...

The news article you posted there isn't clearly libel or slander. Still, it shows that Fox News is defensively reacting and lawyering up.

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The fact of the matter is: Facebook trolls __don't even bother__ lawyering up. They don't even care. They know they're immune through a combination of technique + laws.

Facebook trolls are not immune under the law.

They might be immune due to the techniques they used, but if so that is an argument against allowing anonymity, which is what lets trolls say what they want with impunity.

> They might be immune due to the techniques they used, but if so that is an argument against allowing anonymity, which is what lets trolls say what they want with impunity.

Even if they weren't anonymous, they're physically outside of the USA and therefore outside the reach of the US Civil Court system.

I think I'd be in favor of a US PKI-based ID issued by the Post Office. Post Office easily verifies addresses of every US Citizen. Whether or not to make online ID's mandatory is... well... a different question.

But knowing if someone is a US citizen or not (with verification through simple PKI / certificates) would go a long way. Maybe reviews for US-based items / stores would require a US id for example, to be posted on Amazon. Or, maybe anonymity would be allowed by default, but with a civil court case Amazon would be obligated to disclose the ID of the individual who posted the review.

I mean I can't defend the general jist of what's said on CNN or Fox, but a lot of the time they say things or promote little things that don't matter but are most likely factually accurate enough to pass legal muster.

I don't watch 24/7 so I know someone's going to respond with a Tucker Carlson quote that's like: "The Vaccine is killing people" and unfortunately, even for that, there's technically accurate data to back it up. I'm not saying that's RIGHT but I'm saying why Fox news is still on the air.

People using lawyers to skirt the law will always happen.

But the idea is that we __want__ people to do that. No one likes it when lawyers tell them "you can't legally do that", even when the lawyer is on their side.

Fox News / CNN has a team of lawyers whose job is simply: making sure what they air is legal. All news teams have this, to varying effects. (Maybe not fact checking every article ever written, but at a minimum, lawyers provide advice and review every now and then).

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In any case, Fox News / CNN will not ever say anything blatantly slanderous / libelous. Its why they word things in certain ways. They could have footage of X literally shooting Y in the face, and they'll describe it as "Alleged suspect X allegedly shot Y in the face".

That's a result of this "lawyer training". They're wording their articles so that suspect X won't be able to sue them for libel / slander. You won't find any such weasel words in any social media post.

Absolutely. Every detail is thought out on these networks. They only get in hot water when someone goes off-script and even for that stuff there's typically some kind of correction issued later. It's all about covering their butts.

With enough weasel words, you can say almost anything. Those words degrade a potential statement of fact to that of a mere opinion, and you are free to share your opinions everywhere and with anyone. Legally speaking.

Yeah, but at least we get Tucker Carlson's lawyer telling us that Tucker Carlson's words are non-factual. We get to see who the real clowns are eventually.

You can also see how FoxNews (and other media) are reacting to the libel / slander claims of Dominion Voting (the makers of the vote machines that Fox News claims were insecure). That's a factual claim and directly damages Dominion Voting's business. Fox News overreached severely, and are now backpedaling and cooperating with Dominion Voting's lawyers (https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-media-laws...).

We've got concession articles and "takebacks" from Fox. Its not perfect, but the legal system does in fact have emergency stopgap measures to pull a media company back from the brink.

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You won't even get that far on social media. You can't even pass step 1 of the suing process: naming the person to sue.

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