> The fact that in spite of all those assume-no-malice protections for a defendant this lawsuit still found him guilty says a lot about this case specifically,

> The fact that in spite of all those assume-no-malice protections for a defendant this lawsuit still found him guilty says a lot about this case specifically, and very little about the risks of merely "saying the wrong thing" (at least under a US legal framework). Weirdly, it actually doesn't. The court awarded the plaintiff's default judgement on the claims of defamation because Jones refused to hand over a bunch of evidence during discovery. Given the particulars of the case, he'd probably have lost anyway, and in some ways it's even worse that he felt it more important to hide his financials from the court and plaintiffs than to actually attempt to defend himself. I guess this still does make your point even stronger though: the reason we're here, despite the malice protections, is that Jones didn't even try to defend himself.