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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

> f you have a huge following and use Twitter to say without evidence "restaurant xyz uses rat meat don't go eat there, or 'Tim Cook has AIDS and will die in 3 months'", then that would be protected by free speech like the right-wingers want it.

ridiculous strawman. thats called defamation and you will be sued everywhere for it.

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But the thing is, defamation would be legal under absolute free speech. Nobody could sue for it.

Perhaps "free speech absolutism" isn't quite the right framing here, but more "First Amendment absolutism," with all the known bounds and checks (defamation, libel, incitement to violence). It does give a US-centric bias, but may better convey the meaning and intent.

"Go lynch this man" is speech, but is not protected under the First Amendment. And the First Amendment gives much broader protection than most countries' legal systems do.

The first amendment does not protect anyone who says fire in a theater. Dont make the argument more absurd that it needs to be.

Remember the time Elon Musk called someone a "pedo guy"?

And he was sued.

I believe you can sue anyone for anything. I don't think anything happened except people wasted time. There were no outright consequences for calling someone "pedo guy". The threat of law suits has certainly not bothered Alex Jones much.

You've got more free speech if you've got more money.

https://www.gawker.com/how-things-work-1785604699

You have got more of everything when you have more money. Thats not a very insightful observation to make.

Hey, a western guy in Japan thinks his opinion is worth something!

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