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Comment by spoonjim | Hacker News Reader

Why? Pausing a surgery to take an insurance call is highly unusual. It’s a very serious allegation. Why shouldn’t its veracity be subject to scrutiny and verification by a court?

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Fair question. Because there's no meaningfully deterrent penalty for a meritless defamation claim, and the costs and consequences of going to court are highly asymmetric—to the hard-working surgeon in a bloody white coat; as opposed to the lawfare attorney who performs barratry for a living.

It's in the public interest to proactively defend freedom of speech, particularly that of people who have important things to say (i.e. physicians who witness gross insurer abuses), from the speech-chilling effects of a dysfunctional and unjust tort system.

I'm not a lawyer or defamation law expert, so I will quote a person who is both:

- "I don’t know if this doctor lied about United Healthcare. I do know if I had unlimited money and no scruples and wanted to bully people into silence, Claire Locke would be a top choice to hire." –Ken White

https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social/post/3lhhgk5oh...

Because people need freedom, including freedom to speak their minds, especially about political and social matters, especially about the powerful. If everything you say has to be tried in court with legal expenses, there is no freedom and no check on the powerful.

People make spurious claims all the time, including on news, in commercials, in business and legal contexts, by corporations - look at what UnitedHealth says at times. It's absurd that someone can be sued - there would be no freedom of speech.

Spurious claims that damage someone else's reputation are libel or slander, and are rightly actionable.

I've long thought that doing to this what copyright trolls did to copyright infringement is a road to profit for social media companies. Help connect the outspoken with the damaged and take a cut.

So how do you preserve free speech?

Don't commit libel or slander. Laws against such have always been consistent with the First Amendment.

You're ignoring the problem I mentioned above. That's not a solution, just pretending the system you envision is viable. Let's look at the problem and make it viable.

I'd consider it an improvement over the current situation, where discourse is drowned in a sea of sanctionable incivility. Technology that has made spreading the shit easier needs to be matched by technology to control the shit.

If you support them taking someone else's speech away, what will they say when the come for you? What will anyone else say?

I support taking away noxious speech that was never protected.

Do you support violations of law if people can get away with them?

It isn't unusual. I worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield's call center 20 years ago. Doctors will def come out of surgery if it's regarding being able to do a heart surgery, or lung transplant, etc etc. Now it's been a long time, but I recall due to HIPAA, I could only talk to the doctor about it. I think the PA/nurse could put the claim in, but I had to talk the PCP/doctor about it.

If its wrong, they can release their own explanation of events (probably backable by audio recording).

If it's false the liar deserves punishment handed out by a court

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