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In Ireland we had a huge bruhaha over our Tánaiste (a high up in government) being "terrorized" at a protest in Jobstown. For weeks, headlines across the count

In Ireland we had a huge bruhaha over our Tánaiste (a high up in government) being "terrorized" at a protest in Jobstown. For weeks, headlines across the country talked about how she was "trapped" in her car "for hours". She was "terrified"! Protesters were brought up on serious criminal charges over this incident of "kidnapping" and "forceful detention". High ranking police-people testified on the stand that her car was unable to leave the area due to the protesters, for hours. Then, it came out - leaked on social media - that video footage from multiple angles proved beyond doubt that the incident had been completely overblown. In fact, she could have left at any time, with plenty of space behind her car. All those police sergeants and the Tánaiste herself were lying out of their teeth. The response from Irish media was to try and put restrictions on social media. They ignored the story for a while, then a few years later printed stories about her "recalling her trauma" at the protest. So yeah. This was a high profile incident with an entire country watching - imagine what they do when the accused is 'just some professor or journalist or whatever'.

GekkePrutser 4y ago
I think the OP was primarily thinking about placing actual incriminating evidence on an innocent subject to be used to convict them in a court of law. What was done here was stupid but not illegal, and it was done in favour of the subject (basically PR). Also no hacking was involved, just media 'spin'. It's indeed stupid how the Irish media are obeying the government's spin though.
- lazide 4y ago
  The really insidious part is they often aren’t even ‘obeying’ (which implies a directive), it’s often ‘goes along with’ in the hope of getting better access to interesting stories and drama, and selling more papers.
- mandmandam 4y ago
  Fair points, though I'd say lying under oath is illegal even if you're in high office. You've reminded me about what happened to Maurice McCabe though. Summing up from memory: he gave detailed evidence about widespread systematic corruption at the highest levels and below in the Irish police. Shortly after, he was accused of stealing a pedo priest's hard drive from evidence. Accusations, later found completely untrue, were made by a garda of him doing bad things to young people. Shortly after, a "copy and paste error" in a Tusla (Irish child services) database accused him of molesting a Garda's underage daughter at a birthday party. After a huge fight involving many years of horrific struggle, multiple Garda Commissioners and a Minister for Justice resigned over the series of incidents. McCabe received a 5 million euro settlement. But for many years, the vast majority of the Irish media refused to touch his story; and even after it all came out they continued to report on it in the most twisted way possible. For example, they never mention, when discussing the "copy paste error", that this was in fact the third attempt to smear McCabe in this way. (A brief timeline of the saga: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20442857.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20442857.html) Stupid isn't the word you're looking for - it's 'complicit'.

GekkePrutser 4y ago

I think the OP was primarily thinking about placing actual incriminating evidence on an innocent subject to be used to convict them in a court of law. What was done here was stupid but not illegal, and it was done in favour of the subject (basically PR). Also no hacking was involved, just media 'spin'. It's indeed stupid how the Irish media are obeying the government's spin though.

lazide 4y ago
The really insidious part is they often aren’t even ‘obeying’ (which implies a directive), it’s often ‘goes along with’ in the hope of getting better access to interesting stories and drama, and selling more papers.
mandmandam 4y ago
Fair points, though I'd say lying under oath is illegal even if you're in high office. You've reminded me about what happened to Maurice McCabe though. Summing up from memory: he gave detailed evidence about widespread systematic corruption at the highest levels and below in the Irish police. Shortly after, he was accused of stealing a pedo priest's hard drive from evidence. Accusations, later found completely untrue, were made by a garda of him doing bad things to young people. Shortly after, a "copy and paste error" in a Tusla (Irish child services) database accused him of molesting a Garda's underage daughter at a birthday party. After a huge fight involving many years of horrific struggle, multiple Garda Commissioners and a Minister for Justice resigned over the series of incidents. McCabe received a 5 million euro settlement. But for many years, the vast majority of the Irish media refused to touch his story; and even after it all came out they continued to report on it in the most twisted way possible. For example, they never mention, when discussing the "copy paste error", that this was in fact the third attempt to smear McCabe in this way. (A brief timeline of the saga: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20442857.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20442857.html) Stupid isn't the word you're looking for - it's 'complicit'.