Is Dominion’s $1.6B defamation lawsuit a death blow for Murdoch and Fox News? | Hacker News Reader

Is Dominion’s $1.6B defamation lawsuit a death blow for Murdoch and Fox News?

theguardian.com

36 pointsn1b0m12 comments

I would love to see FOX die, but I do not hope. The Murdochs have done more damage to democracy in my lifetime than I would have thought possible, and have led to an explosion of ignorance in America. This is not about political opinions, by which informed citizens can debate and disagree. This is about pure, unchecked propaganda, a steady stream of bull$hit and lies mainlined into the cubital vein of American discourse. I would never have thought possible that a TV network could be ultimately responsible for the denial of climate catastrophe, hundreds of thousands of pandemic deaths, the election of a criminal, and an insurrection, and but here we are.

Why people want any new media die? You don’t have to watch it if you hate it. Or they can go to North Korea so there is only one “right” voice.

This isn't "you like vanilla, I like chocolate, to each their own." Grandparent post states a view on the tangible harm caused by this media empire. Using the flavor analogy, it's more like vanilla vs. lead ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate ). In that framing, it makes sense to hope lead-based choices go away.

Who defines what is lead and what is vanilla?

The only right way to show something is wrong or toxic is to let people see it.

Media influences elections. The entire point of an election is that whoever wins gets to decide for everybody.

It does not matter which one is lead and which one is vanilla. If 51% of the people vote for what turns out to be lead, it's bad for everybody, not just them.

Elections are supposed to rely on most people's ability to figure out falsehood from reality for themselves. That's a fragile premise, especially when a lot of money is put into creating a substantial propaganda campaign.

In general, we don't have any system for dealing with falsehoods. We just let everybody talk and hope that the people figure it out.

In this specific case, however, we have a jury to decide. When the falsehoods can be shown to be deliberate, reckless, and damaging, they can be penalized for it. The bar is very high, and it's up to a jury to decide.

If somehow this destroys Fox News, it won't be the government making the decision. They will have committed an infringement of the law, and are suffering the consequences. The damage being compensated is to the company, not the nation.

Murdoch media has held British democracy to ransom for years.

If he wasn’t around someone would take his place, unless we regulated the media, and that’s a can of worms

I hope so. We came to a razors edge of western democracy failing, in large part because of this behavior.

Western democracy has always been deeply flawed, basically from the "original sin" of the 3/5ths compromise in America. These radical egalitarian systems that were being proposed and created were unable to give sufficient autonomy to those in the society who weren't the landowning majority class, which would inevitably lead to stress and turmoil.

It’s weird seeing Dominion as the “good guy”.

Diebold used to be the bad guy - remember all of the old Slashdot stories?

https://slashdot.org/tag/diebold

I still think voting machines are unnecessary and very sketchy.

The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Both of them can fuck off and die and the world would be a better place.

Or can anyone sue anyone for anything and will this suit end up in at most a settlement that is just a fraction of the claim?

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