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If you're going to make strong claims about an individual or a company in printed text, then make sure you have the receipts to prove it. The only thing "specia

If you're going to make strong claims about an individual or a company in printed text, then make sure you have the receipts to prove it. The only thing "special" about this is that it happened online, and not in a newspaper or other deadtree publication.

elliekelly 4y ago
He also admitted his intent was to cause harm to the business. Even without "receipts" I suspect he wouldn't be looking at such large judgment if his motivation hadn't been malicious.
- paxys 4y ago
  What is the point of every negative review ever posted if not to cause harm to the business?
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    To advise those about to enter into employment/contract/other with said company. It would cause harm to the company indirectly, but the intent was not to harm the company, but instead to help those about to interact with them. You can also negatively review something with the hope that the feedback would prompt the company to make positive change.
    - threatofrain 4y ago
      That's just the wise defensible argument that everyone should be making regardless of truthiness, but imagine that you think a restaurant sucks and should die. While it should be wrong to make false statements about businesses, it shouldn't be wrong to want a business to fail. The motivation for improvement or helping other customers should not be the only safe motivations to have. It should not be considered inherently immoral or unsavory to want some businesses to fail.
      - kelnos 4y ago
        I think the issue is that it's harder to tease apart why you want to harm the business. Sure, you might say "they screwed me over, and I want to hurt them", but maybe you're lying, and it's really "they're of a race I don't like, and I want to hurt them" or even just "the owner was rude to me, and I want to hurt them". Those aren't defensible reasons to publicly attack someone, or their business. But if you claim that you just want to protect future potential customers from having a bad experience, that shows some level of emotional detachment from the experience that you yourself had, and makes it seem more likely that you're being reasonable instead of just lashing out, and possibly exaggerating or even lying. Certainly this isn't an iron-clad, 100% reliable heuristic, but it's not terrible. And on a higher level, I think we just need more positive process in the world. Trying to protect others is positive; getting revenge is negative. Revenge serves no useful purpose, and often the revenge seeker doesn't really find what they're looking for (emotionally) after getting revenge. It's just toxic all around. Now, that shouldn't be a legal consideration, I don't think, but from a social/society standpoint, maybe it's important.
        maerF0x0 4y ago
        This idea of "harm" is actually a really big issue in many current societies (at least Canada and United States) . There is no monetary value of "harm" unless there is a claim of financial loss. But those financial losses are often future presumed customers, the company essentially claims a right to future revenue. However if an injustice has been done to the customer the company rightfully should lose future revenue. I agree with you about ego driven revenge. But in fact to allow a bad actor to perpetuate is actually injustice and good people at lease care about, if not act to prevent, injustice. Just like (IANAL) most court items, the fact of the matters matters most, the intent is mostly about modifying the consequences. EDIT: this idea of "harm" is also what allows rights holders to go after Pirates by claiming that every download is a lost sale, which is clearly not true.
        threatofrain 4y ago
        I think that the standard should be on whether you made false harmful statements, and not whether you accidentally or nobly made harmful false statements, with little or no focus on mens rea. If I said that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are false, does it really matter if I'm trying to protect other people but in the process I destroy a decent business? Alternatively, if I truthfully claim that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are true, does it matter what my emotional underpinnings are? Our attention should be on whether harm was justified from verifiable facts and not on the flimsy assessment of individual psychology. Perhaps we find out that the Twitter whistleblower wants to harm the business because they're angry at Twitter's relationship to society. With a broad slate of issues to worry about, should we be directing our finite attention to the truthiness and weightiness of claims as verifiable by facts, or should we be focusing on individual psychology?
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    To save other people from getting harmed by a bad product or service. But unless you go out of your way to say you want to harm the company, it's not possible to differentiate those.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Well, either you intend to cause harm to the business, or you intend to protect possible future customers. I think if he had just said, "I wanted to make sure any future potential customers knew the experience I went through so they wouldn't run into trouble", the judge may have been more sympathetic. Yes, protecting future customers would probably cause harm to the business, but intent matters.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > What is the point of every negative review ever posted if not to cause harm to the business? Blimey. Bit of a worrying question!
wowokay 4y ago
Well but at the same time reviews on those platforms are opinion related to services rendered. I suppose it’s fair to say that comments can be worded in a better way in order to avoid something like this. It could also see the going after Google and other services that offer a review platform because I feel there should be a legal warning shown before posting a review if it is no longer taken as opinion and instead is considered factual. This also somehow feels like a win for companies like Comcast/Xfinity that are often reviewed terribly.
- dleslie 4y ago
  This was different than a simple opinion about quality or service; he claimed that the company engaged in fraudulent behaviour, but did not provide sufficient evidence to support that claim.

elliekelly 4y ago

He also admitted his intent was to cause harm to the business. Even without "receipts" I suspect he wouldn't be looking at such large judgment if his motivation hadn't been malicious.

paxys 4y ago
What is the point of every negative review ever posted if not to cause harm to the business?
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  To advise those about to enter into employment/contract/other with said company. It would cause harm to the company indirectly, but the intent was not to harm the company, but instead to help those about to interact with them. You can also negatively review something with the hope that the feedback would prompt the company to make positive change.
  - threatofrain 4y ago
    That's just the wise defensible argument that everyone should be making regardless of truthiness, but imagine that you think a restaurant sucks and should die. While it should be wrong to make false statements about businesses, it shouldn't be wrong to want a business to fail. The motivation for improvement or helping other customers should not be the only safe motivations to have. It should not be considered inherently immoral or unsavory to want some businesses to fail.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      I think the issue is that it's harder to tease apart why you want to harm the business. Sure, you might say "they screwed me over, and I want to hurt them", but maybe you're lying, and it's really "they're of a race I don't like, and I want to hurt them" or even just "the owner was rude to me, and I want to hurt them". Those aren't defensible reasons to publicly attack someone, or their business. But if you claim that you just want to protect future potential customers from having a bad experience, that shows some level of emotional detachment from the experience that you yourself had, and makes it seem more likely that you're being reasonable instead of just lashing out, and possibly exaggerating or even lying. Certainly this isn't an iron-clad, 100% reliable heuristic, but it's not terrible. And on a higher level, I think we just need more positive process in the world. Trying to protect others is positive; getting revenge is negative. Revenge serves no useful purpose, and often the revenge seeker doesn't really find what they're looking for (emotionally) after getting revenge. It's just toxic all around. Now, that shouldn't be a legal consideration, I don't think, but from a social/society standpoint, maybe it's important.
      - maerF0x0 4y ago
        This idea of "harm" is actually a really big issue in many current societies (at least Canada and United States) . There is no monetary value of "harm" unless there is a claim of financial loss. But those financial losses are often future presumed customers, the company essentially claims a right to future revenue. However if an injustice has been done to the customer the company rightfully should lose future revenue. I agree with you about ego driven revenge. But in fact to allow a bad actor to perpetuate is actually injustice and good people at lease care about, if not act to prevent, injustice. Just like (IANAL) most court items, the fact of the matters matters most, the intent is mostly about modifying the consequences. EDIT: this idea of "harm" is also what allows rights holders to go after Pirates by claiming that every download is a lost sale, which is clearly not true.
      - threatofrain 4y ago
        I think that the standard should be on whether you made false harmful statements, and not whether you accidentally or nobly made harmful false statements, with little or no focus on mens rea. If I said that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are false, does it really matter if I'm trying to protect other people but in the process I destroy a decent business? Alternatively, if I truthfully claim that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are true, does it matter what my emotional underpinnings are? Our attention should be on whether harm was justified from verifiable facts and not on the flimsy assessment of individual psychology. Perhaps we find out that the Twitter whistleblower wants to harm the business because they're angry at Twitter's relationship to society. With a broad slate of issues to worry about, should we be directing our finite attention to the truthiness and weightiness of claims as verifiable by facts, or should we be focusing on individual psychology?
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  To save other people from getting harmed by a bad product or service. But unless you go out of your way to say you want to harm the company, it's not possible to differentiate those.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Well, either you intend to cause harm to the business, or you intend to protect possible future customers. I think if he had just said, "I wanted to make sure any future potential customers knew the experience I went through so they wouldn't run into trouble", the judge may have been more sympathetic. Yes, protecting future customers would probably cause harm to the business, but intent matters.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > What is the point of every negative review ever posted if not to cause harm to the business? Blimey. Bit of a worrying question!

wowokay 4y ago

Well but at the same time reviews on those platforms are opinion related to services rendered. I suppose it’s fair to say that comments can be worded in a better way in order to avoid something like this. It could also see the going after Google and other services that offer a review platform because I feel there should be a legal warning shown before posting a review if it is no longer taken as opinion and instead is considered factual. This also somehow feels like a win for companies like Comcast/Xfinity that are often reviewed terribly.

dleslie 4y ago
This was different than a simple opinion about quality or service; he claimed that the company engaged in fraudulent behaviour, but did not provide sufficient evidence to support that claim.