4 ms·
The law deserves more nuance than that: it's clearly bad that someone can baselessly accuse someone else of murder, but it's not clear that a weaker defamation
by woodruffw 4y ago
The law deserves more nuance than that: it's clearly bad that someone can baselessly accuse someone else of murder, but it's not clear that a weaker defamation standard produces better social outcomes overall.
In this particular case: the woman making the baseless claims is pretty clearly mentally ill. Is society best served by her being fined or serving jail time? It's not clear to me that it is.
- Analemma_ 4y agoIt seems pretty fucked up that if I’m being defamed, I can’t do anything about it if the person defaming me is mentally ill. Do I just have to sit there and watch my reputation go down the shitter, with potential loss of jobs, income, etc.? That doesn’t seem like a workable system to me.
- tptacek 4y agoIn the US, you're not being defamed until someone relates a damaging false fact. This particular defendant has, apparently, only said that the Tarot deck told her the plaintiff was a murderer. That's not a fact. It's like saying "in my opinion, you're a murderer". You're allowed to do that.
- dmurray 4y ago> That's not a fact. It may well be a fact. But it's a fact about the Tarot cards, not the professor. I don't think the case would be materially different if the cards required less interpretation, e.g. if she had instead consulted a Magic 8-ball which told her the professor was the murderer "without a doubt".
- tptacek 4y agoYes! But if you could show she consulted the Magic 8-ball and it said "Better not tell you now" and she lied and said "It is decidedly so", you might could actually sue for defamation, which is wild.
- woodruffw 4y agoIn the legal sense, it's not clear that you are being defamed just because a crazy person believes crazy things for crazy reasons. The article goes into how (and why) the standard is (usually) higher than that. It's not clear what should happen differently. The court can't enforce the private mental states of random citizens; there could be millions of cranks right now who believe that you're a murderer and are talking about you behind your back. Unless their beliefs come from factual claims that they know are false, it's not clear what recourse the courts should offer you.
- Beltalowda 4y agoThis person seem have hundreds of followers on social media sites, which is hardlya big audience, and the claims are so obviously batshit insane that I don't think there will be much risk for loss of jobs, income, etc.
- superfrank 4y ago> In this particular case: the woman making the baseless claims is pretty clearly mentally ill What makes you say that? I have admittedly only watched one or two of her videos, but I didn't see anything that clearly points to her being mentally ill as opposed to stupid and mean.
- woodruffw 4y agoThat was based on her calling herself God in her profile plus, you know, thinking that you can solve a murder with tarot cards.