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> I know I’m like a broken record about it: defamation requires a provably false statement of fact, This is actually not true in all jurisdictions. In Sweden a

by mongol 4y ago

> I know I’m like a broken record about it: defamation requires a provably false statement of fact, This is actually not true in all jurisdictions. In Sweden a statement can be defamatory even if true. A Swedish politician was found guilty of defamation for mentioning on Facebook that the legal counsel of an opposing party in a civil law suite she was involved in had been sentenced for a a child sex crime. It was factually true but found defamatory because it was deemed irrelevant and harming the reputation of that person. Many, including me, find the Swedish version of defamation strange. Now people on Twitter with opposing political views constantly bring up that she was sentenced for a crime (defamation), which is hypocrisy of tall order.

draw_down 4y ago
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tptacek 4y ago
We're exclusively talking about US defamation law on this story.
- kortilla 4y ago
  Who defines what we’re exclusively allowed to talk about when a story comes up? I missed that one in the HN guidelines.
  - pvg 4y ago
    It's in there Avoid generic tangents.
    - maxbond 4y ago
      I don't think generic tangents should be taken to include relevant tangents. I read this part of the guidelines (in context, with the surrounding language about flamebaits & tropes) as being about using something tangentially related as an excuse to pivot the conversation to your pet issue, not as forbidding you to add color to a conversation. That doesn't seem at all compatible with promoting curious conversation. I looked at a handful of times when dang cited this rule, and it always included the part before (Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents.) and was in response to flamebait comments. I think it's interesting & provokes my curiosity to hear about how this observation doesn't hold in different jurisdictions. I don't see how it should detract from anyone else's experience of the thread.
      - pvg 4y ago
        I mean, they're table manners for a nerd messageboard so a lot more subjective than defamation law. You can always reverse engineer something out of them explaining the quality (or lack thereof) of some specific comment, after the fact. Less subjective are the effects and you can see them here - if a comment mostly produces corrections and rules lawyering, it's not a great comment and fills up the thread with meta and fluff. To take an even broader view - if the goal of the forum is curious conversation, good toplevel comments have to look like invitations to curious conversation to others. If others perceive the comment as reply guy well-actually-ing, the possible positive intent one can extract from it armed with the guidelines and a cheese cloth doesn't matter that much.
        maxbond 4y ago
        > Less subjective are the effects and you can see them here - if a comment mostly produces corrections and rules lawyering, it's not a great comment and fills up the thread with meta and fluff. This is circular. I complained about this comment, therefore the comment is bad, and you can tell because I complained about it. I'd suggest it is the complaints that are noisy and should be avoided. > To take an even broader view - if the goal of the forum is curious conversation, good toplevel comments have to look like invitations to curious conversation to others. Anyone looking for something to nitpick and fight about will succeed. That can't be a motivation for guidelines because it's just a treadmill. My understanding is that one of the reasons the guidelines are so terse and loosely worded in the first place is to discourage rules lawyering. They aren't a book to throw at someone and say, "your comment is wrong, because you went on a tangent." (And I'm not really even convinced discussing defamation on a post about defamation should be considered a tangent.)
        pvg 4y ago
        This is circular. Circular, subjective, I'm not sure what the argument here is. There's no disagreement these rules don't meet the standards of formal logic. Anyone looking for something to nitpick and fight about will succeed. [...] I'm not really even convinced discussing defamation on a post about defamation should be considered a tangent Isn't that a tautology? Wait, we're not doing that. It might not be a tangent, the tone and phrasing count too. For instance, people often write the good version of their comment after they get mod-berated, in defense of their originally iffy comment. Again, it's the effects that count. The poster could have easily written a less hackle-raising, summoning-reply-guys-to-the-reply-guy comment and we wouldn't need to define tangents from first principles to begin with.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Not me. I'm just saying that the story is about US defamation law, by an expert in US law. It's not a story about the concept of defamation more generally.
Dracophoenix 4y ago
The Swedish definition isn't foreign to the 1st Circuit as demonstrated in ruling opinion in Noonan v. Staples https://www.rcfp.org/journals/the-news-media-and-the-law-spring-2009/truth-defense-dinged-now-wh/ https://www.rcfp.org/journals/the-news-media-and-the-law-spr...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 4y ago
> This is actually not true in all jurisdictions Pretty much no statement of law is true in all jurisdictions; Ken White is an American lawyer who writes on American law (except when he expressly notes otherwise), and, while defamation may be defined somewhat differently in differenr US jurisdictions, the particular description at issue is true in all US jurisdictions. EDIT: Or at least it generally has been held to be, and to be guaranteed to be as a matter of Constitutional law. The 1st Circuit has apparently carved out a narrow exception, as mentioned by a sibling comment, and it will be interesting to see how other courts, and ultimately the Supreme Court, handle that issue. But since this is a matter of public concern, that exception is irrelevant to the case at hand.
blondin 4y ago
Japan has a similar law about defamation. it does not matter whether the defamatory statement is true or not. so long as one can show damage to one's reputation.

by mongol 4y ago

draw_down 4y ago

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tptacek 4y ago

We're exclusively talking about US defamation law on this story.

kortilla 4y ago
Who defines what we’re exclusively allowed to talk about when a story comes up? I missed that one in the HN guidelines.
- pvg 4y ago
  It's in there Avoid generic tangents.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    I don't think generic tangents should be taken to include relevant tangents. I read this part of the guidelines (in context, with the surrounding language about flamebaits & tropes) as being about using something tangentially related as an excuse to pivot the conversation to your pet issue, not as forbidding you to add color to a conversation. That doesn't seem at all compatible with promoting curious conversation. I looked at a handful of times when dang cited this rule, and it always included the part before (Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents.) and was in response to flamebait comments. I think it's interesting & provokes my curiosity to hear about how this observation doesn't hold in different jurisdictions. I don't see how it should detract from anyone else's experience of the thread.
    - pvg 4y ago
      I mean, they're table manners for a nerd messageboard so a lot more subjective than defamation law. You can always reverse engineer something out of them explaining the quality (or lack thereof) of some specific comment, after the fact. Less subjective are the effects and you can see them here - if a comment mostly produces corrections and rules lawyering, it's not a great comment and fills up the thread with meta and fluff. To take an even broader view - if the goal of the forum is curious conversation, good toplevel comments have to look like invitations to curious conversation to others. If others perceive the comment as reply guy well-actually-ing, the possible positive intent one can extract from it armed with the guidelines and a cheese cloth doesn't matter that much.
      - maxbond 4y ago
        > Less subjective are the effects and you can see them here - if a comment mostly produces corrections and rules lawyering, it's not a great comment and fills up the thread with meta and fluff. This is circular. I complained about this comment, therefore the comment is bad, and you can tell because I complained about it. I'd suggest it is the complaints that are noisy and should be avoided. > To take an even broader view - if the goal of the forum is curious conversation, good toplevel comments have to look like invitations to curious conversation to others. Anyone looking for something to nitpick and fight about will succeed. That can't be a motivation for guidelines because it's just a treadmill. My understanding is that one of the reasons the guidelines are so terse and loosely worded in the first place is to discourage rules lawyering. They aren't a book to throw at someone and say, "your comment is wrong, because you went on a tangent." (And I'm not really even convinced discussing defamation on a post about defamation should be considered a tangent.)
        pvg 4y ago
        This is circular. Circular, subjective, I'm not sure what the argument here is. There's no disagreement these rules don't meet the standards of formal logic. Anyone looking for something to nitpick and fight about will succeed. [...] I'm not really even convinced discussing defamation on a post about defamation should be considered a tangent Isn't that a tautology? Wait, we're not doing that. It might not be a tangent, the tone and phrasing count too. For instance, people often write the good version of their comment after they get mod-berated, in defense of their originally iffy comment. Again, it's the effects that count. The poster could have easily written a less hackle-raising, summoning-reply-guys-to-the-reply-guy comment and we wouldn't need to define tangents from first principles to begin with.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Not me. I'm just saying that the story is about US defamation law, by an expert in US law. It's not a story about the concept of defamation more generally.

Dracophoenix 4y ago

The Swedish definition isn't foreign to the 1st Circuit as demonstrated in ruling opinion in Noonan v. Staples https://www.rcfp.org/journals/the-news-media-and-the-law-spring-2009/truth-defense-dinged-now-wh/ https://www.rcfp.org/journals/the-news-media-and-the-law-spr...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 4y ago

> This is actually not true in all jurisdictions Pretty much no statement of law is true in all jurisdictions; Ken White is an American lawyer who writes on American law (except when he expressly notes otherwise), and, while defamation may be defined somewhat differently in differenr US jurisdictions, the particular description at issue is true in all US jurisdictions. EDIT: Or at least it generally has been held to be, and to be guaranteed to be as a matter of Constitutional law. The 1st Circuit has apparently carved out a narrow exception, as mentioned by a sibling comment, and it will be interesting to see how other courts, and ultimately the Supreme Court, handle that issue. But since this is a matter of public concern, that exception is irrelevant to the case at hand.

blondin 4y ago

Japan has a similar law about defamation. it does not matter whether the defamatory statement is true or not. so long as one can show damage to one's reputation.