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So we're back with the "Locker Room Talk" defence? What great strides we are taking.
by cookie_monsta 7y ago
So we're back with the "Locker Room Talk" defence?
What great strides we are taking.
- WalterBright 7y agoIt's fair if you don't like Musk for such statements. That doesn't make it a fit issue for the courts, however.
- cookie_monsta 7y agoI don't care about Musk one way or the other. But staging a campaign to deliberately tarnish somebody's reputation without evidence is exactly a matter for the courts and the reason why we have defamation laws in the first place
- fzeroracer 7y agoGenerally speaking, I think it's a Really Bad Idea if ultra-wealthy people can literally say anything they want without consequence and use their money/fame etc to terrorize people and destroy their reputation.
- WalterBright 7y agoHow about when Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib accused (on national TV) the President of having intercourse with his mother? She's in a powerful political position (more than Musk's). She had no evidence, and faced no consequences.
- fzeroracer 7y agoSo you're gonna make an incredibly disingenuous argument by trying to equate calling someone a 'Motherfucker' with 'Pedo Guy', one of which is an average insult completely disconnected from what you're trying to create and the other which was created by Musk, who hired a private investigator to try and fish out claims while also trying to shop it around to social media outlets in attempt to push the idea that Unsworth was actually a pedophile.
- WalterBright 7y agoNo evidence was presented in court that anyone believed he was a pedophile. It was just an insult.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cookie_monsta 7y agoNo evidence was required. California recognises defamation per se, removing the burden of proof on the plaintiff to prove that damage occurred when it is obvious that it would have. If it were just an insult Musk wouldn't have doubled down in later comments and hired a PI to verify his claim.
- kelnos 7y agoJust because "locker room talk" viz two men trading insults isn't a good look, it's a bit much to involve to courts and suggest that you've been hurt to the tune of nearly $200M... especially when you started it.
- cookie_monsta 7y agoI guess it comes down to proportionality and if you believe that "your solution is a ridiculous PR stunt" warrants a response of "I'm going to destroy your reputation" I know that such nuance in conversation is not de rigueur on today's internet.
- kelnos 7y agoI absolutely agree that destroying someone's reputation is a ridiculous escalation from the original comment, but 1) the guy's reputation hasn't been destroyed at all (regardless of whether or not that was Musk's intent), and 2) either way, that still doesn't seem like a matter for the courts. I guess I'm also just so sick of the heavily litigious nature of our society that I have a visceral negative reaction to something like "you were mean to me on the internet so I'm going to sue you for $RIDICULOUS_SUM".
- cookie_monsta 7y agoI would say that the amount of damage to his reputation is exactly the sort of thing that the court case is supposed to measure. From this distance and with the facts we have it's hard to tell. I don't live in the US so maybe you suffer more from litigation fatigue than me. If it were two nobodies trolling it out on twitter I would agree with you - who cares? But Musk's statements are heavily reported internationally and this was in the middle of an internationally-reported event and he chose to go after one of the central figures, both on twitter and in the media. Characterising that as just being mean on the internet is a little disingenuous imo.