35 ms·

Fox News, Dominion Voting Systems reach $787,500,000 settlement

202 points by Decabytes 3y ago

Arrath 3y ago
> "This settlement reflects FOX's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards." What a world it is, that high journalistic standards can end in a $787m payout.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  It aggravates me that the wealthy can just buy their way out of legal humiliation literally as the trial is underway. Settlements and plea bargains are a cancer on the judicial process.
  - henriquez 3y ago
    I agree 100% when it comes to billionaires “settling” their way out of criminal prosecution, but if two private groups have a dispute they shouldn’t be forced to litigate it all the way through trial if they can come to an agreement outside of court.
    - fknorangesite 3y ago
      In a vacuum I agree with you; but when it's election interference, with rhetoric leading to an actual attempted coup...I am not so sure.
      - forkerenok 3y ago
        > with rhetoric leading to an actual attempted coup In my understanding, if this is a grave concern, then it's the federal prosecutor that should press charges. I assume DVS were simply suing as a business for damages. Edit: wording to clarify the point
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - conductr 3y ago
      The real injustice is that “news” can do what Fox did, and it doesn’t constitute a crime. At a minimum, They should lose their broadcast license if they are going to manufacture truth that threatens democracy.
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        Minor nitpick: FNN is a cable channel and thus does not require a license. however they're in the middle of renegotiating their fees with the cable companies, so if you are a cable customer and hate Rupert Murdoch, now is a good time to get on the phone with your cable company and whine about how you don't want to pay for Fox News as part of the basic package.
        ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        So none of the BS was broadcast over public airwaves by Fox?
        anigbrowl 3y ago
        Correct.
      - runnerup 3y ago
        I wholeheartedly agree. I said exactly this to my friend earlier today. However, I immediately followed it up noting that any law like this will eventually be used maliciously. E.g. Party in power will say “CNN LIES!” and get DOJ to set up a sham trial. But even if it shouldn’t be possible for the ruling political party to infringe on free speech, it should also not be tenable to lie to millions of Americans this blatantly.
        conductr 3y ago
        It should be a law that’s hard to prove, like libel or something similar (not a legal expert). Or, laws specifically regarding elections (and maybe a few other matters). Even if they were forced to disclose their known misstatements (lies) publicly in someway that might help them collectively keep each other in honest. It might be similar to how public companies are required to have audits and report their results and whatnot. We in the public get information to help us determine what the truth is regarding stocks. Honestly just like the deregulation of finance introducing risks to banks and resulting Great Recession, the deregulation of fairness doctrine and other things are equally at fault for things like this happening IMO. We’re letting history repeat when we forget why such regulations were instituted to begin with.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Disagree, I think that moderately early on in the process parties need to make a decision about settle or litigate. What we have now is a system where people are incentivized to bluff endlessly, treating litigation like high-stakes poker. Even those with no legal education can see it's bullshit, and it brings the entire legal system into disrepute.
      - singleshot_ 3y ago
        What does getting whacked with a $787,500,000.00 settlement payment incentivize newscorp to do? I get the feeling next time they feel like bluffing, someone over there might bring up the three quarters of a billion dollars that they just burned. I mean I get that this incentivizes plaintiffs to sue when they think they’re getting screwed but… isn’t that a good thing? (That is, isn’t that the whole point of the tort system?)
        anigbrowl 3y ago
        What I mean is they keep bluffing up until the literal commencement of the trial. The legal process, once underway, should not be treated as an extension of the political poker table.
  - singleshot_ 3y ago
    I’d take the alternate viewpoint: it’s great that our society empowers those who want to come down like a sledgehammer on those who break the law. The incentivization of some of our most aggressively adversarial minds toward the task of justice is motivated the most efficient way that our society knows: the reassignment of mass amounts of capital according to the processes of the law.
  - mdasen 3y ago
    For a company that's worth less than $17.5B, a $787.5M settlement means giving away 4.5% of your company's value. Unlike big tech companies or whatnot, Fox Corporation isn't that big. Even after its huge fall, Meta is still 32x larger. Apple is 150x larger, Microsoft 123x larger, Alphabet 77x larger. A $787.5M settlement would only be 0.03% of Apple's value rather than 4.5% so I could see it being a meaningless penalty on Apple, but it's a large enough penalty that Fox is going to think twice before allowing their talent to do similar things in the future. A few more of these and they could be signing away a quarter of their company's value. > just buy their way out of legal humiliation Except they basically didn't buy their way out of the humiliation. Most of the damming stuff has already been made public. Most of the embarrassing laundry has been aired. At this point, the only real question is whether Dominion would get the $1.6B they had asked for. Instead, they settled for a guaranteed half. Plus, Fox is still facing a lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting system. Smartmatic issued a statement, "Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest." It also likely means Fox losing more money. > Settlements and plea bargains are a cancer on the judicial process I definitely understand the sentiment and plea bargains can be really bad pushing low-income people to plead guilty to lesser crimes even if they're innocent and letting rich people off easy when they're definitely guilty. Likewise, a company might reach a settlement with someone they've wronged who doesn't know their rights and who isn't on equal footing with such a giant corporation. In a civil case between two companies with basically unlimited legal funds, it seems quite reasonable. It's important to note that this case isn't about Fox doing you harm. It's about Fox doing Dominion harm. Between Fox and Dominion, this seems like quite a reasonable outcome. Dominion won big against Fox and it will likely encourage other litigants to continue pursuing Fox. What is bad about this settlement other than things like you wanting to know potentially more details that might be exposed? If your answer is that Fox has caused more harm than just the harm to Dominion, that's a different trial. I would agree that Fox has created incredible harm to our society. I don't know how we could pursue that in a legal sense which is a shame. Still, this isn't a plea bargain or settlement that seems bad. It seems like a reasonable outcome where the complainant received half of what they were hoping to get without the uncertainty of the trial outcome. Even if Dominion won the case, they might have been awarded less damages than they asked for (or less than the settlement).
  - PragmaticPulp 3y ago
    > It aggravates me that the wealthy can just buy their way out of legal humiliation literally as the trial is underway. Coughing up nearly a billion dollars to settle a trial because they know they’ll lose is quite humiliating.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Arthur Andersen was dissolved for less (Enron accounting scandal). Edit: good call out andrew! That’s what I get for commenting at the bar.
      - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        Except that they cost real people real money.
        ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        Who downvotes this observation? Shilling for a long-dead company is a bit odd.
      - andrewinardeer 3y ago
        Fun fact: If you spelled the company the way you did just then in your job application to them your CV would go straight in the bin and you would not get a call regardless of your credentials. It was a well known vetting criteria.
        inerte 3y ago
        You mean if you applied to work at Arthur Andersen, because it's misspelled?
        andrewinardeer 3y ago
        Affirmative
    - 3y ago
  - cosmodisk 3y ago
    If it'll make you feel better, fox shareholders are prepping lawsuits against the executives to recoup the money the company will need to pay the settlement. So it's not the end yet.
  - juancampa 3y ago
    Doesn't the other side need to accept the settlement?
- rickspencer3 3y ago
  It's complete double speak, is it not? Any commitment to even mediocre journalistic standards would not have led to this whole situation, much less this outcome.
  - Arrath 3y ago
    Oh absolutely. Such would be my expectation, at least. My initial comment was firmly tongue in cheek.
- andrewinardeer 3y ago
  Just like large tech companies a billion in fines here and there throughout the years is the cost of doing business.
olliej 3y ago
If the settlement doesn’t include every fox host that lied spending every show for a week stating the knowingly lied, and that their reason was ratings, I don’t see how this results in accountability, and I don’t see how this won’t happen again repeatedly while the GOP continues to undermine the judiciary.
- Loughla 3y ago
  While I'm not sure about the GOP statement. . . . Otherwise, you're 100% correct. If that money is less than they made from the shows the lies were spread on, then telling blatant lies to improve ratings officially just became a 'cost of doing business' that can be accounted for and will happen again.
- mikeyouse 3y ago
  Nope - per reports, there's no requirement for anything on-air at all: https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1648432832266801158 https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1648432832266801158 > News: I'm told that, as part of the terms of its settlement, Fox News will 'not' have to acknowledge ON AIR that it told lies about Dominion in the wake of the 2020 election. Fox did acknowledge falsehoods in its statement. But don't expect hosts to have to read statements.
  - libraryatnight 3y ago
    Makes me sick to my stomach.
tempaway45751 3y ago
Its interesting that the only people that seem to be able to hold corporate media to account are other corporations with different interests. edit: I suppose the News international phone hacking scandal was journalists/individuals/government holding Murdoch to account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacki... ... but that was in the UK.
- smcl 3y ago
  To be honest it didn't really achieve a great deal. The Murdoch papers still have a pretty heavy influence over British politics - they stuck with Boris long after he should've been done, it was only when they turned on him it that he was finished, for example.
  - tempaway45751 3y ago
    Oh definitely. It was like a slightly visible victory that didn't actually make much difference to the murdoch empire. I remember seeing murdoch in that select committee having to answer questions. That was something unprecedented(and almost a custard pie that arguably swung things in his favour). But no long term difference NOTW closed but then I think they started publishing the Sun on Sunday instead? NI/BSkyB merger was scuppered but now its back on the cards I think?
    - happymellon 3y ago
      Didn't Sky get spun out of NewsCorp because of the phone scandel and is under Comcast now?
TechnicolorByte 3y ago
Not really a shocker that they settled given all the embarrassing texts/emails showing the blatant lies Fox execs and media figureheads were engaging in. Just surprising that it took them this long—the start of the trial—to settle. Would be nice if the Fox News crowd would read some of those messages to wake up from all the manipulation.
- panarky 3y ago
  For the record, the word "dominion" does not appear anywhere on the live foxnews.com site. https://imgur.com/a/cXcITll https://imgur.com/a/cXcITll How would the Fox News crowd even become aware of those messages when their information sources don't report them?
  - frozenport 3y ago
    Does their audience even use search?
  - ajross 3y ago
    They won't, but wouldn't anyway. A civil suit can recover damages, it can't make Fox into something other than what it is. But no one who would have been receptive to the truth is watching Fox in the first place. That is, really, the core truth exposed by this suit. Fox is completely captured by its audience. For years we thought it was the other way around.
    - ortusdux 3y ago
      A settlement can contain just about anything. For example, it could require Fox to air an MSNBC produced 1 hour primetime special about the whole affair.
      - ajross 3y ago
        Contracts can constrain or direct speech in specific ways. So sure, you could put that one special in a settlement. There are severe first amendment problems when you try to do something more vague, like "You have to report on unflattering stories about Fox itself", which I took to be the upthread point.
ourmandave 3y ago
Coming up on Fox, the Smartmatic trial that will be for twice the settlement.
- cancerhacker 3y ago
  As of right now, msnbc, cnn, drudge report, an nytimes all show the settlement story on their home pages, but foxnews.com ... huge "Biden cabinet secretary violated federal law". And searching for "dominion" on their website brings up a 2 day old article as the most recent. I don't see a public apology forthcoming from them. I hope the settlement includes something that will actually hold them accountable beyond just money.
  - cancerhacker 3y ago
    After a few hours there was a short article that appeared on their front page (and is now gone) - and didn't mention the settlement payout. If you search for dominion, there's a 1m49s "news update" about it - where their expert says that there was a payout but he didn't have it independently verified so he wouldn't speculate what it was. I'm so pissed that they're not being held accountable.
b0sk 3y ago
This is hacker news, but I find it appalling that there's surprisingly less noise about the organized effort to subvert democracy overnight. If Trump had succeeded, do you really think there'd be any meaningful elections in the future? My hope is the most hackers are outraged but don't comment here.
- mikeyouse 3y ago
  There were a frightening number of people repeating the same obviously false claims here post-election. Motivated reasoning is a hell of a drug.
  - ChicagoDave 3y ago
    Nah. Just Russian trolls.
    - andrewinardeer 3y ago
      It is a shame that in any number of forums these days that if someone expresses an opinion that counters someone else's they are labelled a "Russian troll". We all know that foreign interference is a genuine concern, however, an opinion that appears to be right of centre doesn't always equate to it being grown in a Russian troll farm.
      - ChicagoDave 3y ago
        No, but the prevalence of such accounts has overwhelmed all forums and social media. There’s no good way to differentiate you from a troll.
        LawTalkingGuy 3y ago
        So? Respond to people with reasoned arguments and it doesn't matter who they are. Trolls win when people think they have to achieve purity of thought - to drive away anyone who believes wrong-think even at the cost of the forum itself. Triggering forums to play purity games and cull the insufficiently aligned is a troll victory. That doesn't mean you should let politics bleed into every other thread, but in a politics thread just move past the idea of needing to censor people to win.
ourmandave 3y ago
Geez, and Trump only made $250M off the Big Lie. Sad. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-jan-6-committee-fundraising-b2100072.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
melling 3y ago
Second settlement this week. There was this other conspiracy theory: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/fox-news-venezuela-dominion.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/fox-news-venezue... Of course, these sort of things have happened before: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938545344/fox-news-settles-with-seth-richs-parents-for-false-story-claiming-clinton-leaks https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938545344/fox-news-settles-wi...
- tenpies 3y ago
  And to several networks: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/media/cnn-settles-lawsuit-viral-video/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/media/cnn-settles-lawsuit-vir... "CNN settles lawsuit with Nick Sandmann stemming from viral video controversy" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/business/media/washington-post-lawsuit-covington-student.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/business/media/washington... "Washington Post Settles Lawsuit With Student in Viral Protest Video" https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29289191 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29289191 "NY Times settles lawsuit with McCain lobbyist"
  - microtherion 3y ago
    Yes, but in all those cases, the settlement terms were not disclosed. What is somewhat unusual here is not just the high amount, but also that it was disclosed — which may very well have been another condition of the settlement that Dominion insisted on.
  - j_walter 3y ago
    ...and those did real damage to individuals. I'd say it's one thing for a large corporation to have certain things claimed against it and an entirely different thing for a giant news network going after individuals with complete garbage reporting (not a single thing they claimed about Nick Sandmann was true and it was easily verifiable).
- r00fus 3y ago
  There is still one more multi-billion dollar case [1] with Smartmatic to settle or go to court. [1] https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/trump-lawyers-fox-news-sued-for-2-7-billion-by-voting-machine-maker-2363484 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/trump-lawyers-fox-news-sued-...
passwordoops 3y ago
This whole affair is an incredibly frustrating example of why society is breaking down. There are legitimate concerns with both security and reliability with these voting machines... But no, Fox had to fold it into their culture war fight and took things too far. Now, Dominion is vindicated and I'm happy to bet good dollars to donuts that any legitimate criticism or questions raised about the fidelity of their machines will be countered with culture-war ad hominem attack
- Retric 3y ago
  This lawsuit wasn’t about criticism it was about blatant lies. Dominion Voting Systems doesn’t give a flying fuck about the culture wars, but they do care if people stop buying their products. Fox on the other hand very much cares about the culture wars, and is as shown here perfectly willing to lie.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- stonogo 3y ago
  The people who are qualified to have technical opinions on these machines are still qualified to have technical opinions on these machines. Academics and other security researchers are still pursuing these issues. All this will do is make it less likely random internet opinion-havers will be amplified by grifters, which is an outcome I have no problem with.
  - flavius29663 3y ago
    But that matters very little. What matters is people at large not wanting these machines anymore, until then, we will keep having them.
    - nebula8804 3y ago
      The good news is that these efforts to audit and improve the voting systems started many years ago. As a result of all the efforts by researchers, many states have scrapped their old systems and changed to newer paper + electronic based systems. For example, NJ used to have machines that were proven to have attack vectors. They were discarded in favor of a system that records electronically but also prints out your selection on paper and then drops it in a sealed box after you verify what is printed on the paper is what you intended to vote. If the election is close then a review of the paper ballots is performed. Is it perfect? No, but it is better than having no paper record at all as it at least gives the option of a manual recount is someone were to challenge the results (or if the count is close enough, a recount triggers without a challenge). The challenge now is to ensure all 50 states are on board with using machines with no known exploits. Unfortunately some states are lagging behind greatly (can you guess which ones?)
s5300 3y ago
Very small fine for genuinely trying to subvert democracy & ruin faith in fair elections in the country with the largest military in the world.
- mrangle 3y ago
  And zero fine for doing that with the Russia lies and an entire year of 2020 riots that were election terrorism.
mattcantstop 3y ago
Tucker Carlson, in his interview with Ben Shapiro while discussing self-driving trucks said he would lie to spin the story in a different way to achieve his desired outcome. There is no journalistic integrity.
- MuffinFlavored 3y ago
  Source? Timestamp?
  - pharrington 3y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awM0nrlOZxk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awM0nrlOZxk at 6:10 found by copy pasting "Tucker Carlson, in his interview with Ben Shapiro while discussing self-driving trucks" into the google and getting lucky
    - blowski 3y ago
      I don’t know whether you meant it this way, but your comment comes across as “let me Google that for you”. Either way, I also wanted a source, and thank you for posting the link here so I also don’t have to go looking for it.
      - pharrington 3y ago
        I absolutely did mean to be as snarky as possible. Asking for a source for something is one thing, but when the person you (not referring to you, but the original person I replied to) asked gave the word for word, verbatim search term who's first result is the EXACT thing you asked for, and you type "SOURCE TIMESTAMP" anyway, I can't be charitable.
        blowski 3y ago
        HN Guidelines for comments: > Don't be snarky. It makes for a nicer community if you just post the link and leave out the snark.
Wensio 3y ago
Those text messages were enlightening. I wonder how many people will see this and take it into consideration next time they view a segment on fox.
- piyh 3y ago
  People that only read Fox News will never hear about this.
- npteljes 3y ago
  I don't think people watch Fox for truth, integrity, open mindedness, being informed and such things. Rather the goal is validation, taking part in something, feeling in a certain way. So as long as Fox can keep the supply of these up, viewership won't decline significantly because of things like these text messages.
graeme 3y ago
I'm surprised Dominion settled. It had seemed as though Dominion wanted a public apology or a public victory to support their reputation.
- rekttrader 3y ago
  780 million reasons to not do it. This will bankroll the executives till the end of time.
  - isk517 3y ago
    Also, winning wouldn't have helped their reputation. Chances are if you still believe in the election rigging story the results of this trial wasn't going to be the thing that changed your mind.
- blowski 3y ago
  On the BBC article: > Dominion chief executive John Poulos told a press conference the deal included Fox "admitting to telling lies, causing enormous damage to my company". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65318654 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65318654
  - mrangle 3y ago
    Voting machines were always bullshit. Your company isn't supposed to be involved in democracy, at all.
  - graeme 3y ago
    Ah, thanks! This should be higher up
- paxys 3y ago
  They did get Fox to admit wrongdoing, which is rare in such a settlement. And they got close to a billion dollars out of it. A pretty solid win for them.
- sebzim4500 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gowings97 3y ago
[flagged]
- the_only_law 3y ago
  Do you think he’ll win the primary. DeSantis seems real popular among the Republican Party and is generally more… composed.
  - binarymax 3y ago
    DeSantis will primary and Trump will run independent, splitting the party.
    - somewhat_drunk 3y ago
      This is exactly what will happen. Even if Trump doesn't run independent, a large portion of his cultists won't vote for DeSantis because they will feel betrayed by the GOP. https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/727604522156228608 https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/72760452215622860...
      - mrangle 3y ago
        In no future will this happen in the primary. The Nation has been exposed to far more "anti-Trump cultist" rhetoric declaring NeverTrump for years who won't vote for him.
  - jimbob45 3y ago
    DeSantis doesn't have any policy wins to his name outside of the FPRE act and the Disney business. Neither of those things are enough to carry someone to the presidency. Even Romney had his healthcare program to hang his hat on.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  Will your head explode when he loses in 2024?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tempaway45751 3y ago
Dominion Voting System's annual turnover/revenue is approx $25M per year and they have 142 employees. So this is like 30 years of revenue for them. One of Dominions ex-directors also has ongoing lawsuits against various Trump people - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems https://cstrial.com/insights/c-s-earns-victory-for-former-dominion-voting-systems-employee-dr-eric-coomer https://cstrial.com/insights/c-s-earns-victory-for-former-do...
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  "Turnover?"
  - tempaway45751 3y ago
    e.g. https://www.zippia.com/dominion-voting-systems-careers-1569241/revenue/ https://www.zippia.com/dominion-voting-systems-careers-15692...
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      Thanks, but I don't see "turnover" on there. As far as I've ever seen, turnover refers to personnel changes. Also: Gotta love how someone downvoted this simple observation. Go back to Reddit, whoever you are.
      - tempaway45751 3y ago
        Where I'm from it also means revenue. I have edited my comment above
        ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        Got it. Where are you from?
        3y ago
unnamed76ri 3y ago
I appreciate that we are starting to see a bit of accountability brought to these media organizations. We saw it a few years ago with CNN and the Convington Catholic kid and now this. Just two small drops in a giant ocean of garbage but it is something.
mrangle 3y ago
I'm not into using the voting machines of a company that confronts rhetoric and criticism with massive lawsuits. No one should trust the literal mechanical linchpin of democracy to a company that uses lawfare instead of its words.
- Capricorn2481 3y ago
  Yeah they should've just written a nice letter to the nice news company
- happymellon 3y ago
  I thought that the court system was one of the pillars of the American legal system. If they didn't use the court system then there isn't really any legal alternative for non-government entities to exercise their judgement against each other outside of lobbying their representatives to make Fox News illegal? The facts were laid out and the chance for an independent to review and make judgement. Fox settled because they felt that the facts were not in their favour.
cs702 3y ago
Assuming Fox hosts mentioned the word "Dominion" in an accusation an average of, say, 50 times a day for two years, the cost to Fox per utterance was on the order of $787,500,000 ÷ (50×365×2) = ~$22,000 per utterance. Those lies sure were expensive! Let's hope this will induce Fox hosts to be a wee bit more careful about keeping facts straight going forward.
- schneems 3y ago
  > Let's hope this will induce Fox hosts to be a wee bit more careful about keeping facts straight going forward. My guess is that the lesson they learned here is “don’t get caught”.
polski-g 3y ago
I am not sure why Fox would have settled. Outside of a few statements by Dobbs, it seems like the interviewees were the ones who defamed Dominion, not Fox News employees -- based on the lawsuit filed by Dominion: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/17/media/dominion-fox-news-allegations/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/17/media/dominion-fox-news-alleg...
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Because that's now how libel laws work. If you could always use the "well, it's just what the interviewees said" defense, then any broadcast company could easily seek out the craziest nut jobs to spew lies, give them tons of airtime, and have interviewers give lots of leading/suggestive comments (it's not lost on me that, sadly, this is how a lot of "news" organizations work these days). Now, the thing that makes it hard to prove defamation against a news organization is the "actual malice" standard (the legal term is actually a bit different from what those words normally mean). That is, if the Fox interviewees came on and spewed their lies, and there was no evidence that Fox itself disbelieved them or were highly skeptical, Fox would be fine. But the thing that was so damaging to Fox is that they were publishing lies while at the same time commenting in private messages that they knew it was all BS. That is why Fox had so much legal jeopardy.

202 points by Decabytes 3y ago

> "This settlement reflects FOX's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards." What a world it is, that high journalistic standards can end in a $787m payout.

anigbrowl 3y ago
It aggravates me that the wealthy can just buy their way out of legal humiliation literally as the trial is underway. Settlements and plea bargains are a cancer on the judicial process.
- henriquez 3y ago
  I agree 100% when it comes to billionaires “settling” their way out of criminal prosecution, but if two private groups have a dispute they shouldn’t be forced to litigate it all the way through trial if they can come to an agreement outside of court.
  - fknorangesite 3y ago
    In a vacuum I agree with you; but when it's election interference, with rhetoric leading to an actual attempted coup...I am not so sure.
    - forkerenok 3y ago
      > with rhetoric leading to an actual attempted coup In my understanding, if this is a grave concern, then it's the federal prosecutor that should press charges. I assume DVS were simply suing as a business for damages. Edit: wording to clarify the point
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - conductr 3y ago
    The real injustice is that “news” can do what Fox did, and it doesn’t constitute a crime. At a minimum, They should lose their broadcast license if they are going to manufacture truth that threatens democracy.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Minor nitpick: FNN is a cable channel and thus does not require a license. however they're in the middle of renegotiating their fees with the cable companies, so if you are a cable customer and hate Rupert Murdoch, now is a good time to get on the phone with your cable company and whine about how you don't want to pay for Fox News as part of the basic package.
      - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        So none of the BS was broadcast over public airwaves by Fox?
        anigbrowl 3y ago
        Correct.
    - runnerup 3y ago
      I wholeheartedly agree. I said exactly this to my friend earlier today. However, I immediately followed it up noting that any law like this will eventually be used maliciously. E.g. Party in power will say “CNN LIES!” and get DOJ to set up a sham trial. But even if it shouldn’t be possible for the ruling political party to infringe on free speech, it should also not be tenable to lie to millions of Americans this blatantly.
      - conductr 3y ago
        It should be a law that’s hard to prove, like libel or something similar (not a legal expert). Or, laws specifically regarding elections (and maybe a few other matters). Even if they were forced to disclose their known misstatements (lies) publicly in someway that might help them collectively keep each other in honest. It might be similar to how public companies are required to have audits and report their results and whatnot. We in the public get information to help us determine what the truth is regarding stocks. Honestly just like the deregulation of finance introducing risks to banks and resulting Great Recession, the deregulation of fairness doctrine and other things are equally at fault for things like this happening IMO. We’re letting history repeat when we forget why such regulations were instituted to begin with.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    Disagree, I think that moderately early on in the process parties need to make a decision about settle or litigate. What we have now is a system where people are incentivized to bluff endlessly, treating litigation like high-stakes poker. Even those with no legal education can see it's bullshit, and it brings the entire legal system into disrepute.
    - singleshot_ 3y ago
      What does getting whacked with a $787,500,000.00 settlement payment incentivize newscorp to do? I get the feeling next time they feel like bluffing, someone over there might bring up the three quarters of a billion dollars that they just burned. I mean I get that this incentivizes plaintiffs to sue when they think they’re getting screwed but… isn’t that a good thing? (That is, isn’t that the whole point of the tort system?)
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        What I mean is they keep bluffing up until the literal commencement of the trial. The legal process, once underway, should not be treated as an extension of the political poker table.
- singleshot_ 3y ago
  I’d take the alternate viewpoint: it’s great that our society empowers those who want to come down like a sledgehammer on those who break the law. The incentivization of some of our most aggressively adversarial minds toward the task of justice is motivated the most efficient way that our society knows: the reassignment of mass amounts of capital according to the processes of the law.
- mdasen 3y ago
  For a company that's worth less than $17.5B, a $787.5M settlement means giving away 4.5% of your company's value. Unlike big tech companies or whatnot, Fox Corporation isn't that big. Even after its huge fall, Meta is still 32x larger. Apple is 150x larger, Microsoft 123x larger, Alphabet 77x larger. A $787.5M settlement would only be 0.03% of Apple's value rather than 4.5% so I could see it being a meaningless penalty on Apple, but it's a large enough penalty that Fox is going to think twice before allowing their talent to do similar things in the future. A few more of these and they could be signing away a quarter of their company's value. > just buy their way out of legal humiliation Except they basically didn't buy their way out of the humiliation. Most of the damming stuff has already been made public. Most of the embarrassing laundry has been aired. At this point, the only real question is whether Dominion would get the $1.6B they had asked for. Instead, they settled for a guaranteed half. Plus, Fox is still facing a lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting system. Smartmatic issued a statement, "Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest." It also likely means Fox losing more money. > Settlements and plea bargains are a cancer on the judicial process I definitely understand the sentiment and plea bargains can be really bad pushing low-income people to plead guilty to lesser crimes even if they're innocent and letting rich people off easy when they're definitely guilty. Likewise, a company might reach a settlement with someone they've wronged who doesn't know their rights and who isn't on equal footing with such a giant corporation. In a civil case between two companies with basically unlimited legal funds, it seems quite reasonable. It's important to note that this case isn't about Fox doing you harm. It's about Fox doing Dominion harm. Between Fox and Dominion, this seems like quite a reasonable outcome. Dominion won big against Fox and it will likely encourage other litigants to continue pursuing Fox. What is bad about this settlement other than things like you wanting to know potentially more details that might be exposed? If your answer is that Fox has caused more harm than just the harm to Dominion, that's a different trial. I would agree that Fox has created incredible harm to our society. I don't know how we could pursue that in a legal sense which is a shame. Still, this isn't a plea bargain or settlement that seems bad. It seems like a reasonable outcome where the complainant received half of what they were hoping to get without the uncertainty of the trial outcome. Even if Dominion won the case, they might have been awarded less damages than they asked for (or less than the settlement).
- PragmaticPulp 3y ago
  > It aggravates me that the wealthy can just buy their way out of legal humiliation literally as the trial is underway. Coughing up nearly a billion dollars to settle a trial because they know they’ll lose is quite humiliating.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Arthur Andersen was dissolved for less (Enron accounting scandal). Edit: good call out andrew! That’s what I get for commenting at the bar.
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      Except that they cost real people real money.
      - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        Who downvotes this observation? Shilling for a long-dead company is a bit odd.
    - andrewinardeer 3y ago
      Fun fact: If you spelled the company the way you did just then in your job application to them your CV would go straight in the bin and you would not get a call regardless of your credentials. It was a well known vetting criteria.
      - inerte 3y ago
        You mean if you applied to work at Arthur Andersen, because it's misspelled?
        andrewinardeer 3y ago
        Affirmative
  - 3y ago
- cosmodisk 3y ago
  If it'll make you feel better, fox shareholders are prepping lawsuits against the executives to recoup the money the company will need to pay the settlement. So it's not the end yet.
- juancampa 3y ago
  Doesn't the other side need to accept the settlement?
rickspencer3 3y ago
It's complete double speak, is it not? Any commitment to even mediocre journalistic standards would not have led to this whole situation, much less this outcome.
- Arrath 3y ago
  Oh absolutely. Such would be my expectation, at least. My initial comment was firmly tongue in cheek.
andrewinardeer 3y ago
Just like large tech companies a billion in fines here and there throughout the years is the cost of doing business.

olliej 3y ago

If the settlement doesn’t include every fox host that lied spending every show for a week stating the knowingly lied, and that their reason was ratings, I don’t see how this results in accountability, and I don’t see how this won’t happen again repeatedly while the GOP continues to undermine the judiciary.

Loughla 3y ago
While I'm not sure about the GOP statement. . . . Otherwise, you're 100% correct. If that money is less than they made from the shows the lies were spread on, then telling blatant lies to improve ratings officially just became a 'cost of doing business' that can be accounted for and will happen again.
mikeyouse 3y ago
Nope - per reports, there's no requirement for anything on-air at all: https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1648432832266801158 https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1648432832266801158 > News: I'm told that, as part of the terms of its settlement, Fox News will 'not' have to acknowledge ON AIR that it told lies about Dominion in the wake of the 2020 election. Fox did acknowledge falsehoods in its statement. But don't expect hosts to have to read statements.
- libraryatnight 3y ago
  Makes me sick to my stomach.

tempaway45751 3y ago

Its interesting that the only people that seem to be able to hold corporate media to account are other corporations with different interests. edit: I suppose the News international phone hacking scandal was journalists/individuals/government holding Murdoch to account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacki... ... but that was in the UK.

smcl 3y ago
To be honest it didn't really achieve a great deal. The Murdoch papers still have a pretty heavy influence over British politics - they stuck with Boris long after he should've been done, it was only when they turned on him it that he was finished, for example.
- tempaway45751 3y ago
  Oh definitely. It was like a slightly visible victory that didn't actually make much difference to the murdoch empire. I remember seeing murdoch in that select committee having to answer questions. That was something unprecedented(and almost a custard pie that arguably swung things in his favour). But no long term difference NOTW closed but then I think they started publishing the Sun on Sunday instead? NI/BSkyB merger was scuppered but now its back on the cards I think?
  - happymellon 3y ago
    Didn't Sky get spun out of NewsCorp because of the phone scandel and is under Comcast now?

TechnicolorByte 3y ago

Not really a shocker that they settled given all the embarrassing texts/emails showing the blatant lies Fox execs and media figureheads were engaging in. Just surprising that it took them this long—the start of the trial—to settle. Would be nice if the Fox News crowd would read some of those messages to wake up from all the manipulation.

panarky 3y ago
For the record, the word "dominion" does not appear anywhere on the live foxnews.com site. https://imgur.com/a/cXcITll https://imgur.com/a/cXcITll How would the Fox News crowd even become aware of those messages when their information sources don't report them?
- frozenport 3y ago
  Does their audience even use search?
- ajross 3y ago
  They won't, but wouldn't anyway. A civil suit can recover damages, it can't make Fox into something other than what it is. But no one who would have been receptive to the truth is watching Fox in the first place. That is, really, the core truth exposed by this suit. Fox is completely captured by its audience. For years we thought it was the other way around.
  - ortusdux 3y ago
    A settlement can contain just about anything. For example, it could require Fox to air an MSNBC produced 1 hour primetime special about the whole affair.
    - ajross 3y ago
      Contracts can constrain or direct speech in specific ways. So sure, you could put that one special in a settlement. There are severe first amendment problems when you try to do something more vague, like "You have to report on unflattering stories about Fox itself", which I took to be the upthread point.

ourmandave 3y ago

Coming up on Fox, the Smartmatic trial that will be for twice the settlement.

cancerhacker 3y ago
As of right now, msnbc, cnn, drudge report, an nytimes all show the settlement story on their home pages, but foxnews.com ... huge "Biden cabinet secretary violated federal law". And searching for "dominion" on their website brings up a 2 day old article as the most recent. I don't see a public apology forthcoming from them. I hope the settlement includes something that will actually hold them accountable beyond just money.
- cancerhacker 3y ago
  After a few hours there was a short article that appeared on their front page (and is now gone) - and didn't mention the settlement payout. If you search for dominion, there's a 1m49s "news update" about it - where their expert says that there was a payout but he didn't have it independently verified so he wouldn't speculate what it was. I'm so pissed that they're not being held accountable.

b0sk 3y ago

This is hacker news, but I find it appalling that there's surprisingly less noise about the organized effort to subvert democracy overnight. If Trump had succeeded, do you really think there'd be any meaningful elections in the future? My hope is the most hackers are outraged but don't comment here.

mikeyouse 3y ago
There were a frightening number of people repeating the same obviously false claims here post-election. Motivated reasoning is a hell of a drug.
- ChicagoDave 3y ago
  Nah. Just Russian trolls.
  - andrewinardeer 3y ago
    It is a shame that in any number of forums these days that if someone expresses an opinion that counters someone else's they are labelled a "Russian troll". We all know that foreign interference is a genuine concern, however, an opinion that appears to be right of centre doesn't always equate to it being grown in a Russian troll farm.
    - ChicagoDave 3y ago
      No, but the prevalence of such accounts has overwhelmed all forums and social media. There’s no good way to differentiate you from a troll.
      - LawTalkingGuy 3y ago
        So? Respond to people with reasoned arguments and it doesn't matter who they are. Trolls win when people think they have to achieve purity of thought - to drive away anyone who believes wrong-think even at the cost of the forum itself. Triggering forums to play purity games and cull the insufficiently aligned is a troll victory. That doesn't mean you should let politics bleed into every other thread, but in a politics thread just move past the idea of needing to censor people to win.

ourmandave 3y ago

Geez, and Trump only made $250M off the Big Lie. Sad. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-jan-6-committee-fundraising-b2100072.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

melling 3y ago

Second settlement this week. There was this other conspiracy theory: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/fox-news-venezuela-dominion.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/fox-news-venezue... Of course, these sort of things have happened before: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938545344/fox-news-settles-with-seth-richs-parents-for-false-story-claiming-clinton-leaks https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938545344/fox-news-settles-wi...

tenpies 3y ago
And to several networks: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/media/cnn-settles-lawsuit-viral-video/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/media/cnn-settles-lawsuit-vir... "CNN settles lawsuit with Nick Sandmann stemming from viral video controversy" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/business/media/washington-post-lawsuit-covington-student.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/business/media/washington... "Washington Post Settles Lawsuit With Student in Viral Protest Video" https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29289191 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29289191 "NY Times settles lawsuit with McCain lobbyist"
- microtherion 3y ago
  Yes, but in all those cases, the settlement terms were not disclosed. What is somewhat unusual here is not just the high amount, but also that it was disclosed — which may very well have been another condition of the settlement that Dominion insisted on.
- j_walter 3y ago
  ...and those did real damage to individuals. I'd say it's one thing for a large corporation to have certain things claimed against it and an entirely different thing for a giant news network going after individuals with complete garbage reporting (not a single thing they claimed about Nick Sandmann was true and it was easily verifiable).
r00fus 3y ago
There is still one more multi-billion dollar case [1] with Smartmatic to settle or go to court. [1] https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/trump-lawyers-fox-news-sued-for-2-7-billion-by-voting-machine-maker-2363484 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/trump-lawyers-fox-news-sued-...

passwordoops 3y ago

This whole affair is an incredibly frustrating example of why society is breaking down. There are legitimate concerns with both security and reliability with these voting machines... But no, Fox had to fold it into their culture war fight and took things too far. Now, Dominion is vindicated and I'm happy to bet good dollars to donuts that any legitimate criticism or questions raised about the fidelity of their machines will be countered with culture-war ad hominem attack

Retric 3y ago
This lawsuit wasn’t about criticism it was about blatant lies. Dominion Voting Systems doesn’t give a flying fuck about the culture wars, but they do care if people stop buying their products. Fox on the other hand very much cares about the culture wars, and is as shown here perfectly willing to lie.
deleted 3y ago
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stonogo 3y ago
The people who are qualified to have technical opinions on these machines are still qualified to have technical opinions on these machines. Academics and other security researchers are still pursuing these issues. All this will do is make it less likely random internet opinion-havers will be amplified by grifters, which is an outcome I have no problem with.
- flavius29663 3y ago
  But that matters very little. What matters is people at large not wanting these machines anymore, until then, we will keep having them.
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    The good news is that these efforts to audit and improve the voting systems started many years ago. As a result of all the efforts by researchers, many states have scrapped their old systems and changed to newer paper + electronic based systems. For example, NJ used to have machines that were proven to have attack vectors. They were discarded in favor of a system that records electronically but also prints out your selection on paper and then drops it in a sealed box after you verify what is printed on the paper is what you intended to vote. If the election is close then a review of the paper ballots is performed. Is it perfect? No, but it is better than having no paper record at all as it at least gives the option of a manual recount is someone were to challenge the results (or if the count is close enough, a recount triggers without a challenge). The challenge now is to ensure all 50 states are on board with using machines with no known exploits. Unfortunately some states are lagging behind greatly (can you guess which ones?)

s5300 3y ago

Very small fine for genuinely trying to subvert democracy & ruin faith in fair elections in the country with the largest military in the world.

mrangle 3y ago
And zero fine for doing that with the Russia lies and an entire year of 2020 riots that were election terrorism.

mattcantstop 3y ago

Tucker Carlson, in his interview with Ben Shapiro while discussing self-driving trucks said he would lie to spin the story in a different way to achieve his desired outcome. There is no journalistic integrity.

MuffinFlavored 3y ago
Source? Timestamp?
- pharrington 3y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awM0nrlOZxk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awM0nrlOZxk at 6:10 found by copy pasting "Tucker Carlson, in his interview with Ben Shapiro while discussing self-driving trucks" into the google and getting lucky
  - blowski 3y ago
    I don’t know whether you meant it this way, but your comment comes across as “let me Google that for you”. Either way, I also wanted a source, and thank you for posting the link here so I also don’t have to go looking for it.
    - pharrington 3y ago
      I absolutely did mean to be as snarky as possible. Asking for a source for something is one thing, but when the person you (not referring to you, but the original person I replied to) asked gave the word for word, verbatim search term who's first result is the EXACT thing you asked for, and you type "SOURCE TIMESTAMP" anyway, I can't be charitable.
      - blowski 3y ago
        HN Guidelines for comments: > Don't be snarky. It makes for a nicer community if you just post the link and leave out the snark.

Wensio 3y ago

Those text messages were enlightening. I wonder how many people will see this and take it into consideration next time they view a segment on fox.

piyh 3y ago
People that only read Fox News will never hear about this.
npteljes 3y ago
I don't think people watch Fox for truth, integrity, open mindedness, being informed and such things. Rather the goal is validation, taking part in something, feeling in a certain way. So as long as Fox can keep the supply of these up, viewership won't decline significantly because of things like these text messages.

graeme 3y ago

I'm surprised Dominion settled. It had seemed as though Dominion wanted a public apology or a public victory to support their reputation.

rekttrader 3y ago
780 million reasons to not do it. This will bankroll the executives till the end of time.
- isk517 3y ago
  Also, winning wouldn't have helped their reputation. Chances are if you still believe in the election rigging story the results of this trial wasn't going to be the thing that changed your mind.
blowski 3y ago
On the BBC article: > Dominion chief executive John Poulos told a press conference the deal included Fox "admitting to telling lies, causing enormous damage to my company". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65318654 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65318654
- mrangle 3y ago
  Voting machines were always bullshit. Your company isn't supposed to be involved in democracy, at all.
- graeme 3y ago
  Ah, thanks! This should be higher up
paxys 3y ago
They did get Fox to admit wrongdoing, which is rare in such a settlement. And they got close to a billion dollars out of it. A pretty solid win for them.
sebzim4500 3y ago

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gowings97 3y ago

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the_only_law 3y ago
Do you think he’ll win the primary. DeSantis seems real popular among the Republican Party and is generally more… composed.
- binarymax 3y ago
  DeSantis will primary and Trump will run independent, splitting the party.
  - somewhat_drunk 3y ago
    This is exactly what will happen. Even if Trump doesn't run independent, a large portion of his cultists won't vote for DeSantis because they will feel betrayed by the GOP. https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/727604522156228608 https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/72760452215622860...
    - mrangle 3y ago
      In no future will this happen in the primary. The Nation has been exposed to far more "anti-Trump cultist" rhetoric declaring NeverTrump for years who won't vote for him.
- jimbob45 3y ago
  DeSantis doesn't have any policy wins to his name outside of the FPRE act and the Disney business. Neither of those things are enough to carry someone to the presidency. Even Romney had his healthcare program to hang his hat on.
nebula8804 3y ago
Will your head explode when he loses in 2024?

deleted 3y ago

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tempaway45751 3y ago

Dominion Voting System's annual turnover/revenue is approx $25M per year and they have 142 employees. So this is like 30 years of revenue for them. One of Dominions ex-directors also has ongoing lawsuits against various Trump people - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems https://cstrial.com/insights/c-s-earns-victory-for-former-dominion-voting-systems-employee-dr-eric-coomer https://cstrial.com/insights/c-s-earns-victory-for-former-do...

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
"Turnover?"
- tempaway45751 3y ago
  e.g. https://www.zippia.com/dominion-voting-systems-careers-1569241/revenue/ https://www.zippia.com/dominion-voting-systems-careers-15692...
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    Thanks, but I don't see "turnover" on there. As far as I've ever seen, turnover refers to personnel changes. Also: Gotta love how someone downvoted this simple observation. Go back to Reddit, whoever you are.
    - tempaway45751 3y ago
      Where I'm from it also means revenue. I have edited my comment above
      - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        Got it. Where are you from?
        3y ago

unnamed76ri 3y ago

I appreciate that we are starting to see a bit of accountability brought to these media organizations. We saw it a few years ago with CNN and the Convington Catholic kid and now this. Just two small drops in a giant ocean of garbage but it is something.

mrangle 3y ago

I'm not into using the voting machines of a company that confronts rhetoric and criticism with massive lawsuits. No one should trust the literal mechanical linchpin of democracy to a company that uses lawfare instead of its words.

Capricorn2481 3y ago
Yeah they should've just written a nice letter to the nice news company
happymellon 3y ago
I thought that the court system was one of the pillars of the American legal system. If they didn't use the court system then there isn't really any legal alternative for non-government entities to exercise their judgement against each other outside of lobbying their representatives to make Fox News illegal? The facts were laid out and the chance for an independent to review and make judgement. Fox settled because they felt that the facts were not in their favour.

cs702 3y ago

Assuming Fox hosts mentioned the word "Dominion" in an accusation an average of, say, 50 times a day for two years, the cost to Fox per utterance was on the order of $787,500,000 ÷ (50×365×2) = ~$22,000 per utterance. Those lies sure were expensive! Let's hope this will induce Fox hosts to be a wee bit more careful about keeping facts straight going forward.

schneems 3y ago
> Let's hope this will induce Fox hosts to be a wee bit more careful about keeping facts straight going forward. My guess is that the lesson they learned here is “don’t get caught”.

polski-g 3y ago

I am not sure why Fox would have settled. Outside of a few statements by Dobbs, it seems like the interviewees were the ones who defamed Dominion, not Fox News employees -- based on the lawsuit filed by Dominion: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/17/media/dominion-fox-news-allegations/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/17/media/dominion-fox-news-alleg...

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Because that's now how libel laws work. If you could always use the "well, it's just what the interviewees said" defense, then any broadcast company could easily seek out the craziest nut jobs to spew lies, give them tons of airtime, and have interviewers give lots of leading/suggestive comments (it's not lost on me that, sadly, this is how a lot of "news" organizations work these days). Now, the thing that makes it hard to prove defamation against a news organization is the "actual malice" standard (the legal term is actually a bit different from what those words normally mean). That is, if the Fox interviewees came on and spewed their lies, and there was no evidence that Fox itself disbelieved them or were highly skeptical, Fox would be fine. But the thing that was so damaging to Fox is that they were publishing lies while at the same time commenting in private messages that they knew it was all BS. That is why Fox had so much legal jeopardy.