4 ms·

I'd imagine these lawsuits' chance of success will very strongly hinge on where they are impaneled. A jury in a conservative, working class or populist area wil

I'd imagine these lawsuits' chance of success will very strongly hinge on where they are impaneled. A jury in a conservative, working class or populist area will probably be pretty sympathetic to striking back at Big Tech, regardless of how weak the merits of the case are. An appeals court may later throw the verdict out. To my understanding, the US is the only developed democracy to still use juries for civil matters (and even for criminal cases it's relatively rare). I am personally anti-populism, and think that civil cases with large financial stakes should be decided by an (appointed not elected) judge- not a random group of folks who can afford to skip work for two to four weeks. The standard explanation we all learn in business school is that newspapers had geographic monopolies pre-Internet, so they were able to rake in astonishing profit margins via advertising (like 30-40% margins). Their lunch was mostly eaten by Craigslist, years before Google and Facebook- plus the fact that the effectively infinite number of websites out there drove advertising prices down a ton

bb611 5y ago
> I am personally anti-populism, and think that civil cases with large financial stakes should be decided by an (appointed not elected) judge- not a random group of folks who can afford to skip work for two to four weeks. US Federal judges are all appointed, not elected, so not much to worry about there. The judge and jury serve different purposes in the US system. The judge's job is to decide questions of law, the jury's is to decide questions of fact. Appeals courts can generally only consider failures by the initial judge on questions of law, meaning it only gets overturned if the first judge really screwed up their job. Given that, it's not clear to me how removing the jury improves the system.
- hash872 5y ago
  Many state judge are elected- for a very long time, the US was the only country in world history to ever elect judges. It's unheard of, not just in the developed world, but also among developing countries. (We were however joined by Bolivia in 2011). And of course many important civil cases are heard in state court. This reminds me of the famous quote by a judge in West Virginia, Richard Neely. He actually said this! “As long as I am allowed to redistribute wealth from out-of-state companies to in-state plaintiffs, I shall continue to do so. Not only is my sleep enhanced when I give someone else’s money away, but so is my job security, because the in-state plaintiffs, their families and their friends will re-elect me. ”
- lordnacho 5y ago
  A bunch of randoms might not be good at deciding the facts. You'd think someone experienced would be better at this than a load of people who won't be held to account.
  - AniseAbyss 5y ago
    The jury system sounded nice on paper but it runs into two problems 1 the average citizen is not the philosopher king that the Founding Fathers envisioned 2 people can't even be arsed to vote how much do they really care about their civic duty
Gunax 5y ago
So basically you're saying that the lawsuit will be decided by sentiment, and not legal precedent? I think that's a concern, but I also have more trust in juries than they are given. As an example, many meritless lawsuits against gun manufacturers have been won by the manufacturers. This also strikes me as a legal stretch--regardless of how good for society local newspapers were, it feels like horse breeders suing car manufacturers.
- catlikesshrimp 5y ago
  Accountable news outlets are much more important for democracy than cars. Eager reporters are a stone in the shoe for any government. That is why they are murdered (outside of the US). You should do whatever it takes to allow newspapers to procure and publish relevant news. The alternative is twitter, youtube, facebook, and that socialmedia Trump wants to launch. The world is heading to a very dark place.
pyrale 5y ago
> regardless of how weak the merits of the case are. Why would you think the case is weak? Documents recently disclosed by state AGs [1] strongly hinted at widespread fraud on AdX, Google's ad exchange. It was the top thread here about a month ago. It's absolutely not surprising that in the light of these revelations, the primary victims of this fraudulent system seek reparation. [1]: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903.152.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.56...
- hash872 5y ago
  According to the Axios article, the lawsuits are about antitrust, not alleged fraud. As I detailed, the reason newspapers are in a precarious financial position is because they previously held a geographic monopoly on classifieds advertising in their cities, but now the Internet (starting with Craigslist) destroyed their monopoly & greatly lowered classified rates by its sheer size. This would have happened, and indeed already did, without Google or Facebook existing
  - pyrale 5y ago
    The document made public also stems from antitrust proceedings. I don't know enough about US legal to comment on the way these companies bring their case, though. > now the Internet (starting with Craigslist) destroyed their monopoly & greatly lowered classified rates by its sheer size. This would have happened, and indeed already did, without Google or Facebook existing It is one thing to accept that your position has been challenged by a new technology. But it is another thing that this new techology is monopolized by a single actor, which apparently uses any fraudulent way it can imagine to abuse market participants. While we can agree that newspapers were bound to suffer from new media (they already did when radio and TV appeared), they still deserve protection from fraud and abusive monopoly power.

bb611 5y ago

> I am personally anti-populism, and think that civil cases with large financial stakes should be decided by an (appointed not elected) judge- not a random group of folks who can afford to skip work for two to four weeks. US Federal judges are all appointed, not elected, so not much to worry about there. The judge and jury serve different purposes in the US system. The judge's job is to decide questions of law, the jury's is to decide questions of fact. Appeals courts can generally only consider failures by the initial judge on questions of law, meaning it only gets overturned if the first judge really screwed up their job. Given that, it's not clear to me how removing the jury improves the system.

hash872 5y ago
Many state judge are elected- for a very long time, the US was the only country in world history to ever elect judges. It's unheard of, not just in the developed world, but also among developing countries. (We were however joined by Bolivia in 2011). And of course many important civil cases are heard in state court. This reminds me of the famous quote by a judge in West Virginia, Richard Neely. He actually said this! “As long as I am allowed to redistribute wealth from out-of-state companies to in-state plaintiffs, I shall continue to do so. Not only is my sleep enhanced when I give someone else’s money away, but so is my job security, because the in-state plaintiffs, their families and their friends will re-elect me. ”
lordnacho 5y ago
A bunch of randoms might not be good at deciding the facts. You'd think someone experienced would be better at this than a load of people who won't be held to account.
- AniseAbyss 5y ago
  The jury system sounded nice on paper but it runs into two problems 1 the average citizen is not the philosopher king that the Founding Fathers envisioned 2 people can't even be arsed to vote how much do they really care about their civic duty

Gunax 5y ago

So basically you're saying that the lawsuit will be decided by sentiment, and not legal precedent? I think that's a concern, but I also have more trust in juries than they are given. As an example, many meritless lawsuits against gun manufacturers have been won by the manufacturers. This also strikes me as a legal stretch--regardless of how good for society local newspapers were, it feels like horse breeders suing car manufacturers.

catlikesshrimp 5y ago
Accountable news outlets are much more important for democracy than cars. Eager reporters are a stone in the shoe for any government. That is why they are murdered (outside of the US). You should do whatever it takes to allow newspapers to procure and publish relevant news. The alternative is twitter, youtube, facebook, and that socialmedia Trump wants to launch. The world is heading to a very dark place.

pyrale 5y ago

> regardless of how weak the merits of the case are. Why would you think the case is weak? Documents recently disclosed by state AGs [1] strongly hinted at widespread fraud on AdX, Google's ad exchange. It was the top thread here about a month ago. It's absolutely not surprising that in the light of these revelations, the primary victims of this fraudulent system seek reparation. [1]: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903.152.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.56...

hash872 5y ago
According to the Axios article, the lawsuits are about antitrust, not alleged fraud. As I detailed, the reason newspapers are in a precarious financial position is because they previously held a geographic monopoly on classifieds advertising in their cities, but now the Internet (starting with Craigslist) destroyed their monopoly & greatly lowered classified rates by its sheer size. This would have happened, and indeed already did, without Google or Facebook existing
- pyrale 5y ago
  The document made public also stems from antitrust proceedings. I don't know enough about US legal to comment on the way these companies bring their case, though. > now the Internet (starting with Craigslist) destroyed their monopoly & greatly lowered classified rates by its sheer size. This would have happened, and indeed already did, without Google or Facebook existing It is one thing to accept that your position has been challenged by a new technology. But it is another thing that this new techology is monopolized by a single actor, which apparently uses any fraudulent way it can imagine to abuse market participants. While we can agree that newspapers were bound to suffer from new media (they already did when radio and TV appeared), they still deserve protection from fraud and abusive monopoly power.