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Comment by zelphirkalt | Hacker News Reader

I wonder, is stating the truth qualifying as "disparaging"? According to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disparaging:

> meant to belittle the value or importance of someone or something : serving or intended to disparage someone or something

Maybe it is not meant to belittle, but merely uncovering the truth. Who is to know, what her intention was, when releasing a book? I guess one would have to read that book and check how she formulated things, to know, whether it is intentionally belittling the "value" of Meta.

Also, subjectively speaking: How does one belittle the value of something that already has net negative value for society?

Maybe the waters are a little bit murky there.

But anyway, this goes to show, how these companies consume your soul. Trying to prevent you from ever revealing the truth about them and their illegal activities.

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Non-disparagement clauses (common for executives) are clauses found in contracts that just state you can't say anything bad about the company, doesn't matter if it's true or not. Some examples here: https://contracts.justia.com/contract-clauses/non-disparagem...

I think it's a case where the law should simply say such clauses are not enforcible.

In the UK, even the truth isn't a sufficient defense for libel or slander.

The fact that you can't speak the 100% truth, and not get sued there is quite disgusting. The truth should always be permitted speech.

Is this still true, post Defamation Act 2013?

No, truth is a defence now.

Same in many EU countries. Poland and Germany are two examples. For example if someone robs you (or do worse things to you) and you call them out publicly you can be liable if you can't prove it happened.

In practice the law defends the offenders. You can't speak up if you don't have a hard proof. I think it's ridiculous but so is a lot of civil law. Americans often don't appreciate how well they have it in comparison.

> you can be liable if you can't prove it happened.

Even if you can prove in many places.

Also if someone robs your house and gets hurt due to some noncompliance on your part they can sue you and win.

This is actually the norm throughout the world.

The law doesn't give a shit about truth but it only cares about keeping thing running smoothly as they currently are.

Clearly the solution is to write everything you have to say through an ancap lens and make it sound as if you think they were really smart for doing all the things they did.

Clearly the solution is not to try and get it both ways—money for disparaging and money for not disparaging. Most people choose one, not both.

Maybe, but if you couldn't rationalize whatever makes you the most money being ethical then you probably wouldn't take a job at a place like Facebook in the first place.

Conveniently, that makes it easy to write your praise. It doesn't take much to go from "demographics like 'teenage girls with body insecurities' want relevant ads like beauty products! We're helping consumers to satisfy their needs!" to "showing teen girls aspirational images that drive them to buy beauty products (and happen to drive insecurities) is just helping them reach their potential! We're helping consumers to uncover needs they didn't know they had!" Wherever your comfort line was to decide to work there, you can probably drive it a little further with similar reasoning.

Non disparagement clauses are put in every severance agreement in the US as a matter of course. It's not just for executives. They'll put it in the severance agreement of a sandwich artist in exchange for one more paycheck -- or sometimes in exchange for nothing at all: "mutual non-disparagement"

It's basically a ban on exposing evil to protect the money of those committing the evil. God commands us to expose, correct, and punish evil. That makes for a better society.

So, reporting evil should always be allowed.

[flagged]

I think that true statements could be considered disparaging. Consider something like:

"Zelphirkalt claims they do not abuse their child. Despite this their kid has been seen at the ER for broken bones multiple times in the last 10 years, and spent a few months in therapy."

Even if I know that your kid's ER visits were for:

1) a broken leg from a fall out of a tree

2) a broken finger from their martial arts lessons

3) a broken nose from defending themselves in a fight

and that the therapy was mandated by the school system as a result of the fight and a "zero tolerance" policy, the text of the statements in question are still absolute truth. I've just phrased it in such a way (and declined to report on other truths) that a reader is encouraged to draw the conclusion that you abuse your kid physically and emotionally. I think if I published something like that in a book, you'd certainly consider it disparaging, and I think a court might agree if you were enforcing a non-disparagement contract I had signed with you.

That said (at least in the US) I doubt a court would find it to be "libel" or "slander", since those are MUCH higher bars to clear by default and assuming you were a famous individual (or company like facebook) the bar is even higher. Something like this would likely hinge on my own reputation and how likely a reader is to assume I'm speaking from "hidden knowledge" as opposed to coming to a given conclusion from public knowledge.

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