4 ms·

It's a statement of opinion which perfectly fits under the guise of free speech. I can claim that McDonald's hamburgers are made of cat meat to lower prices an

It's a statement of opinion which perfectly fits under the guise of free speech. I can claim that McDonald's hamburgers are made of cat meat to lower prices and it's the exact same thing. It's only because it's political (and Jones is a perennial example to be paraded about as the standard for "evil far-right conservative extremist" thought) that it gets contorted into what it has. This will predictably bite people in the cheeks later when this case is used as pretense for going after someone those chastising Jones agree with.

tptacek 4y ago
No. If you built a multimillion-dollar media enterprise and used it to state that you had actual knowledge that McDonalds used cat meat in their Quarter Pounders, McDonalds would likely end up owning your media enterprise, and might also erect a PlayPlace(tm) on the ground your house stood on. We just saw this happen to Oberlin a few weeks ago: you can do tens of millions of dollars of damage by materially misstating facts, and "McDonalds Quarter Pounders Meow Instead Of Moo" is a statement of fact, not opinion. (The numbers in the Oberlin case also flatly refute your argument as well; there, a conservative-friendly plaintiff won a number comparable to what the Sandy Hook parents won here. The big distinction is that there were many more Sandy Hook parents than there were defamed Oberlin candy store owners.)
- rglover 4y ago
  Right, but did he make a specific claim that he had specific, direct knowledge of Sandy Hook being a hoax (e.g., his usual trope of "we've got documents")? A parent (individual) isn't a corporation with profits to be damaged. I don't doubt a claim of emotional distress, but it's a stretch to say every single parent's character was defamed. As far as I saw from trial clips, one nutjob lady claimed Info Wars radicalized her into going after parents. Defamation in that case doesn't make much sense based on the stuff I saw presented.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Yes, that was well established --- as it has to be in any defamation case, lest the case be dismissed. Moreover, it doesn't much matter, because he deliberately defaulted the trial itself, so the only question for the jury was damages. If you haven't followed this case at all, it's pretty easy to quickly Google the background, and you'll immediately fine that "defamation in this case doesn't make much sense" is probably not a coherent thing to say about the Jones case.
    - danans 4y ago
      > Moreover, it doesn't much matter, because he deliberately defaulted the trial itself, so the only question for the jury was damages Which seems to indicate that his end game is to hope for the broader political winds to shift so radically rightward that this judgement against him is somehow unenforceable, perhaps because the very enforcement apparatus has been destroyed by that shift.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    They were harassed by his followers across state lines, so yes, even a broke person’s life can be made orders of magnitude more difficult than it should be under normal conditions. Also, let’s not walk this eggshell here of “did he make any specific claim”, this is the same bullshit that defends trump from calling covid hoax and whatnot.
    - rglover 4y ago
      > They were harassed by his followers across Those are individuals who should be tried independently of Jones. By that standard, anybody who goes and commits a crime because of song lyrics should find the artist tried as an accomplice. It's not "walking on eggshells," it's a matter of legal accuracy. You may not like it, but it's important for maintaining a fair courts system (without which, we forfeit a civil society and revert to tribalism).
      - tptacek 4y ago
        So far no part of the argument you've presented has had anything to do with US defamation law, just for what it's worth. If you're trying to be persuasive, that might be the part of your argument you should opt to shore up. In the alternative, you could adopt the somewhat more popular strategy of "the entire edifice of US defamation law is incongruous with the Constitution and should be thrown out". That argument is wrong too, but it'll get you farther. later edit; I wrote the following I think as the reply below was being written If you watched the Texas Jones trial, you saw the jury be instructed in some detail on what forms of damage they could and could not attribute to Jones. But you can also just look this up; there's no shortage of documents on the Internet that lay out the procedure for attributing damages to a proven case of defamation. Long story short: if you damage somebody's reputation with false statements and, following causally from that damage, they suffer losses because lunatics start harassing them on the street, you are in fact liable for those losses.
        rglover 4y ago
ep103 4y ago
It is a statement of my opinion, that rglover is a pedophile, that has personally been involved in sodomizing children in the greater New York metropolitan area, and does so frequently while working on plans to do terrorist activities in that city with a shadowy cabal of mostly (insert ethnicity here) figures. Now, my kind viewers on Hacker News, I have to attest that these are just my opinions, and as such, I cannot strongly recommend that this viewership immediately find out rglover's personal information and regularly and constantly forward that information to the New York City Metropolitan Police Department's phone numbers for anti-terrorism or crime prevention (available here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/investigative/investigative-landing.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/investigative/investi...). Thank god, where we live in a type of society where, as rglover describes, I am free to make any statements I please, in any manner I please, and claim protection under the right to free speech, and things like defamation and libel law simply do not exist.
- rglover 4y ago
  > I am free to make any statements I please, in any manner I please, and claim protection under the right to free speech Yes, you are. > things like defamation and libel law simply do not exist. I never said they didn't exist.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    People should not be encouraged to nurture unsound opinions.
    - rglover 4y ago
      They shouldn't be encouraged, but if they feel so compelled they should be free to state them.
      - mdp2021 4y ago
        Nearby, somebody submitted a - very interesting - article about the breakthroughs of Brian Eno in Ambient Music. A train of thoughts brought me to check some lyrics from Sébastien Tellier (who may be also known for the contributions from Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo). I did not know about his album /Politics/, for which a most amazing sleeve is conceived: in the image he is hypersmiling, his teeth visually tricked into an impossible shining blinding white (see https://genius.com/album_cover_arts/28060 https://genius.com/album_cover_arts/28060 ) There is opinion, there is lying; there is good faith and there is bad faith. And there is an image of "politics" with hypertouched re-imaging of reality.
sgent 4y ago
See Taco Bell suing for defamation about the makeup of their taco meat. You might get away with a claim about McDonald's burgers that is wrong, it would only be because you were to small to notice.
acchow 4y ago
> I can claim that McDonald's hamburgers are made of cat meat to lower prices Without evidence? Wouldn't this just be slander?

tptacek 4y ago

No. If you built a multimillion-dollar media enterprise and used it to state that you had actual knowledge that McDonalds used cat meat in their Quarter Pounders, McDonalds would likely end up owning your media enterprise, and might also erect a PlayPlace(tm) on the ground your house stood on. We just saw this happen to Oberlin a few weeks ago: you can do tens of millions of dollars of damage by materially misstating facts, and "McDonalds Quarter Pounders Meow Instead Of Moo" is a statement of fact, not opinion. (The numbers in the Oberlin case also flatly refute your argument as well; there, a conservative-friendly plaintiff won a number comparable to what the Sandy Hook parents won here. The big distinction is that there were many more Sandy Hook parents than there were defamed Oberlin candy store owners.)

rglover 4y ago
Right, but did he make a specific claim that he had specific, direct knowledge of Sandy Hook being a hoax (e.g., his usual trope of "we've got documents")? A parent (individual) isn't a corporation with profits to be damaged. I don't doubt a claim of emotional distress, but it's a stretch to say every single parent's character was defamed. As far as I saw from trial clips, one nutjob lady claimed Info Wars radicalized her into going after parents. Defamation in that case doesn't make much sense based on the stuff I saw presented.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Yes, that was well established --- as it has to be in any defamation case, lest the case be dismissed. Moreover, it doesn't much matter, because he deliberately defaulted the trial itself, so the only question for the jury was damages. If you haven't followed this case at all, it's pretty easy to quickly Google the background, and you'll immediately fine that "defamation in this case doesn't make much sense" is probably not a coherent thing to say about the Jones case.
  - danans 4y ago
    > Moreover, it doesn't much matter, because he deliberately defaulted the trial itself, so the only question for the jury was damages Which seems to indicate that his end game is to hope for the broader political winds to shift so radically rightward that this judgement against him is somehow unenforceable, perhaps because the very enforcement apparatus has been destroyed by that shift.
- kaba0 4y ago
  They were harassed by his followers across state lines, so yes, even a broke person’s life can be made orders of magnitude more difficult than it should be under normal conditions. Also, let’s not walk this eggshell here of “did he make any specific claim”, this is the same bullshit that defends trump from calling covid hoax and whatnot.
  - rglover 4y ago
    > They were harassed by his followers across Those are individuals who should be tried independently of Jones. By that standard, anybody who goes and commits a crime because of song lyrics should find the artist tried as an accomplice. It's not "walking on eggshells," it's a matter of legal accuracy. You may not like it, but it's important for maintaining a fair courts system (without which, we forfeit a civil society and revert to tribalism).
    - tptacek 4y ago
      So far no part of the argument you've presented has had anything to do with US defamation law, just for what it's worth. If you're trying to be persuasive, that might be the part of your argument you should opt to shore up. In the alternative, you could adopt the somewhat more popular strategy of "the entire edifice of US defamation law is incongruous with the Constitution and should be thrown out". That argument is wrong too, but it'll get you farther. later edit; I wrote the following I think as the reply below was being written If you watched the Texas Jones trial, you saw the jury be instructed in some detail on what forms of damage they could and could not attribute to Jones. But you can also just look this up; there's no shortage of documents on the Internet that lay out the procedure for attributing damages to a proven case of defamation. Long story short: if you damage somebody's reputation with false statements and, following causally from that damage, they suffer losses because lunatics start harassing them on the street, you are in fact liable for those losses.
      - rglover 4y ago

ep103 4y ago

It is a statement of my opinion, that rglover is a pedophile, that has personally been involved in sodomizing children in the greater New York metropolitan area, and does so frequently while working on plans to do terrorist activities in that city with a shadowy cabal of mostly (insert ethnicity here) figures. Now, my kind viewers on Hacker News, I have to attest that these are just my opinions, and as such, I cannot strongly recommend that this viewership immediately find out rglover's personal information and regularly and constantly forward that information to the New York City Metropolitan Police Department's phone numbers for anti-terrorism or crime prevention (available here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/investigative/investigative-landing.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/investigative/investi...). Thank god, where we live in a type of society where, as rglover describes, I am free to make any statements I please, in any manner I please, and claim protection under the right to free speech, and things like defamation and libel law simply do not exist.

rglover 4y ago
> I am free to make any statements I please, in any manner I please, and claim protection under the right to free speech Yes, you are. > things like defamation and libel law simply do not exist. I never said they didn't exist.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  People should not be encouraged to nurture unsound opinions.
  - rglover 4y ago
    They shouldn't be encouraged, but if they feel so compelled they should be free to state them.
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      Nearby, somebody submitted a - very interesting - article about the breakthroughs of Brian Eno in Ambient Music. A train of thoughts brought me to check some lyrics from Sébastien Tellier (who may be also known for the contributions from Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo). I did not know about his album /Politics/, for which a most amazing sleeve is conceived: in the image he is hypersmiling, his teeth visually tricked into an impossible shining blinding white (see https://genius.com/album_cover_arts/28060 https://genius.com/album_cover_arts/28060 ) There is opinion, there is lying; there is good faith and there is bad faith. And there is an image of "politics" with hypertouched re-imaging of reality.

sgent 4y ago

See Taco Bell suing for defamation about the makeup of their taco meat. You might get away with a claim about McDonald's burgers that is wrong, it would only be because you were to small to notice.

acchow 4y ago

> I can claim that McDonald's hamburgers are made of cat meat to lower prices Without evidence? Wouldn't this just be slander?