5 ms·

How is this not slander? Making false claims to disrupt someone's business seems like the perfect case of slander and should be treated as a legal matter in my

How is this not slander? Making false claims to disrupt someone's business seems like the perfect case of slander and should be treated as a legal matter in my opinion.

gruez 3y ago
It might be, but at least in the US slander is rarely prosecuted criminally. That leaves civil action, but that's limited to how much damage the OP suffered as a result. Given that it's a small personal blog with little traffic/monetization, any legal costs will outweigh any winnings, if any.
agilob 3y ago
Facebook is doing it to protect their community, and disrupting your business is a sacrifice they are willing to make.
occamrazor 3y ago
Because there is no _intent_ to slander.
- beeboobaa 3y ago
  Sure there is, they're a bigcorp and did what they did. Don't let companies get away with crimes you and I wouldn't just because they're too disorganized.
- dns_snek 3y ago
  So if I send an email to your boss saying "occamrazor is a <blank> molester", I'm fine as long as I say that I didn't mean to cause any harm?
  - miloignis 3y ago
    You're fine if you honestly thought it was true, yes.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      am I also fine if I negligently write and keep using an algorithm to detect and report people for being molesters when I know full well that it's actually shitty and I regularly receive reports that it's resulting in false positives? That's facebook's situation. Even though they've got hundreds of billions and could easily afford to, they don't want to pay humans to verify these things and they know that innocent people are being hurt by their terrible lazy code, they just don't care.
      - nerdponx 3y ago
        I suppose you'd have to prove that they knew the algorithm was bad. They'll just say "we're trying our best, but it's hard". And the truth is that it probably is hard. The question is whether knowing that your algorithm is imperfect is equivalent to intent to harm.
    - upget_tiding 3y ago
      You are describing the actual malice standard which only applies to public figures. Also, an accusation of that type would be considered "defamation per se" which would mean that there is not a need to prove damages. According to my layman understanding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/what-is-defamation-per-se-.html https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/w...
      - 1letterunixname 3y ago
        HN needs a button to "ask a professional" to resolve a question in a thread, be it a doctor, lawyer, accountant, physicist, or electrical engineer. ;]
      - miloignis 3y ago
        Ah, that's a good point, thank you!
- switch007 3y ago
  Depends on the legal jurisdiction. No intent required in England for example, just proof of serious harm
perihelions 3y ago
- "disrupt someone's business" It's a personal blog (which didn't even go down), so the damages are zero or negligible. And it's probably not defamatory at all, because the bar for what's "reckless disregard" for truthfulness is quite high. "We run a commercial service that identifies malicious websites and 0.01% of them are unintentionally false positives" is not gross negligence. edit: (To defend myself because I'm getting piled on in votes)—I agree that this shitty behavior, but I just don't agree that there is or should be a legal remedy for it. You all have way too heated hot takes, HN. There's no life-changing injuries here for which five-figure attorneys would be a proportionate investment—this is, no offense, just some blog which did not go down, and everyone will have forgotten all about this by Monday. This is just not the kind of conflict the legal system is meant to resolve!
- dns_snek 3y ago
  Let's not downplay it, the damages are reputational - not (necessarily) financial. They were falsely accused of engaging in criminal activity in the hopes of getting their services provider to terminate their relationship with the author. This trend of hiding behind algorithms and percentage figures needs to stop, yesterday.
  - perihelions 3y ago
    - "the damages are reputational" I don't see any tangible reputational damages here. No one seems to have read this except Digital Ocean (?) - "They were falsely accused of engaging in criminal activity" And Netcraft sincerely believed that this was a criminal-activity website. That is not libel! Untrue statements without malice (or a very severe amount of negligence) are not defamatory in the US. You are allowed to accuse people of things—that is protected speech.
    - Sephr 3y ago
      > No one seems to have read this except Digital Ocean And that matters how? Digital Ocean read the complaint and acted on it, so the reputational damage occurred. You don't have to make a public article to damage someone's reputation privately.
bombcar 3y ago
It's more likely to be the tortious of interference ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference ) but even then, the kicker for almost all non-criminal cases is that you have to have monetary damages or there's really nothing much you can do. Now if net neutrality had teeth, maybe you could angle that way.
atmosx 3y ago
I believe that's a valid case. Especially since NYT is suing OpenAI on similar grounds. i.e. if you want automated tools for "protection" than they need to "correct" 99.99999% of the time otherwise it's not worth it.

How is this not slander? Making false claims to disrupt someone's business seems like the perfect case of slander and should be treated as a legal matter in my opinion.

gruez 3y ago

It might be, but at least in the US slander is rarely prosecuted criminally. That leaves civil action, but that's limited to how much damage the OP suffered as a result. Given that it's a small personal blog with little traffic/monetization, any legal costs will outweigh any winnings, if any.

agilob 3y ago

Facebook is doing it to protect their community, and disrupting your business is a sacrifice they are willing to make.

occamrazor 3y ago

Because there is no _intent_ to slander.

beeboobaa 3y ago
Sure there is, they're a bigcorp and did what they did. Don't let companies get away with crimes you and I wouldn't just because they're too disorganized.
dns_snek 3y ago
So if I send an email to your boss saying "occamrazor is a <blank> molester", I'm fine as long as I say that I didn't mean to cause any harm?
- miloignis 3y ago
  You're fine if you honestly thought it was true, yes.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    am I also fine if I negligently write and keep using an algorithm to detect and report people for being molesters when I know full well that it's actually shitty and I regularly receive reports that it's resulting in false positives? That's facebook's situation. Even though they've got hundreds of billions and could easily afford to, they don't want to pay humans to verify these things and they know that innocent people are being hurt by their terrible lazy code, they just don't care.
    - nerdponx 3y ago
      I suppose you'd have to prove that they knew the algorithm was bad. They'll just say "we're trying our best, but it's hard". And the truth is that it probably is hard. The question is whether knowing that your algorithm is imperfect is equivalent to intent to harm.
  - upget_tiding 3y ago
    You are describing the actual malice standard which only applies to public figures. Also, an accusation of that type would be considered "defamation per se" which would mean that there is not a need to prove damages. According to my layman understanding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/what-is-defamation-per-se-.html https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/w...
    - 1letterunixname 3y ago
      HN needs a button to "ask a professional" to resolve a question in a thread, be it a doctor, lawyer, accountant, physicist, or electrical engineer. ;]
    - miloignis 3y ago
      Ah, that's a good point, thank you!
switch007 3y ago
Depends on the legal jurisdiction. No intent required in England for example, just proof of serious harm

perihelions 3y ago

- "disrupt someone's business" It's a personal blog (which didn't even go down), so the damages are zero or negligible. And it's probably not defamatory at all, because the bar for what's "reckless disregard" for truthfulness is quite high. "We run a commercial service that identifies malicious websites and 0.01% of them are unintentionally false positives" is not gross negligence. edit: (To defend myself because I'm getting piled on in votes)—I agree that this shitty behavior, but I just don't agree that there is or should be a legal remedy for it. You all have way too heated hot takes, HN. There's no life-changing injuries here for which five-figure attorneys would be a proportionate investment—this is, no offense, just some blog which did not go down, and everyone will have forgotten all about this by Monday. This is just not the kind of conflict the legal system is meant to resolve!

dns_snek 3y ago
Let's not downplay it, the damages are reputational - not (necessarily) financial. They were falsely accused of engaging in criminal activity in the hopes of getting their services provider to terminate their relationship with the author. This trend of hiding behind algorithms and percentage figures needs to stop, yesterday.
- perihelions 3y ago
  - "the damages are reputational" I don't see any tangible reputational damages here. No one seems to have read this except Digital Ocean (?) - "They were falsely accused of engaging in criminal activity" And Netcraft sincerely believed that this was a criminal-activity website. That is not libel! Untrue statements without malice (or a very severe amount of negligence) are not defamatory in the US. You are allowed to accuse people of things—that is protected speech.
  - Sephr 3y ago
    > No one seems to have read this except Digital Ocean And that matters how? Digital Ocean read the complaint and acted on it, so the reputational damage occurred. You don't have to make a public article to damage someone's reputation privately.

bombcar 3y ago

It's more likely to be the tortious of interference ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference ) but even then, the kicker for almost all non-criminal cases is that you have to have monetary damages or there's really nothing much you can do. Now if net neutrality had teeth, maybe you could angle that way.

atmosx 3y ago

I believe that's a valid case. Especially since NYT is suing OpenAI on similar grounds. i.e. if you want automated tools for "protection" than they need to "correct" 99.99999% of the time otherwise it's not worth it.