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Hogan (Thiel) vs Gawker and Sandy Hook vs Alex Jones provided a blueprint to weaponize defamation law for political change in an environment where right-wing jo

by mapt 1y ago

Hogan (Thiel) vs Gawker and Sandy Hook vs Alex Jones provided a blueprint to weaponize defamation law for political change in an environment where right-wing journalism has turned into a defamation pipeline and then a defamation -> moral-panic -> stochastic-terror cannon that would impress Gerald Bull. These are supposed journalistic institutions, and that used to mean something, legally and culturally speaking. Making them terrified of losing the public trust once again, using some type of fast-moving wrecking ball, is a necessary component of a future where we make it out of this. So all we need now is an angry left-wing billionaire who can launch a thousand defamation lawsuits, or the most sympathetic group of parents of dead children in history. The last great nightly news anchor was Dan Rather, who was fired symbolically because their organization merely neutrally reported the existence of a sketchy story about possible documents that turned out to be fabricated about George W Bush's military service.

pstuart 1y ago
I remain convinced that Rather was set up by Karl Rove -- it fits in with his other dirty tricks.
- jibal 1y ago
  The story wasn't sketchy. Rather's claims about GWB's service were correct and well documented ... it was only the Killian memo that was apparently inauthentic ... but it may well have been transcribed using later technology.
  - pstuart 1y ago
    That was the beauty of it -- it changed the story from the known facts about Bush into Rather using forged documents. It was a very clever trick, I'll give him that.
    - jibal 1y ago
      Yes, very Rovian. Of course Rather and CBS can be faulted for not doing due diligence, but this is how the right uses incidental mistakes to obscure the facts.
jibal 1y ago
The story wasn't sketchy. Rather's claims about GWB's service were correct and well documented ... it was only the Killian memo that was apparently inauthentic ... but it may well have been transcribed using later technology.
triceratops 1y ago
> Hogan (Thiel) vs Gawker and Sandy Hook vs Alex Jones provided a blueprint to weaponize defamation law for political change Sandy Hook v Jones was not "political". It was deeply, profoundly personal. The Gawker lawsuit was also about settling personal scores. Obviously Hogan wasn't as sympathetic of a plaintiff as the Sandy Hook parents. But it was more odious because Thiel wanted to punish Gawker simply for hurting his feelings, not lying about him. > So all we need now is an angry left-wing billionaire Is there such a thing?
- mapt 1y ago
  Perhaps if there was, we wouldn't need to have this conversation. The closest we've got is the zombie husk of liberal George Soros, who is a center-left finance bro from a Holocaust survivor family who isn't fond of authoritarianism. While a constantly mentioned specter of the right (the fact that he's Jewish and talks with a foreign accent factors, for paleoconservatives), and probably the largest single donor to Democratic causes... He isn't actually particularly left-wing, and his work isn't remotely comparable in scope or in aggression to the ideological warfare waged by the Koch Brothers, or the dozens of other billionaires who have joined hand in hand to establish the durable top-down political infrastructure of the GOP. If a politician or pundit just plays along with these people, if you stay loyal to the cause even in the most tortured argument, you will be a made man. There are thousands of positions held open at endowed economics departments, think tanks, lobbying firms, and captive media to reward people who fight the good fight for the right. Lose an election? There is always the possibility of another campaign in another district. Conversely there is a constant threat of well-funded primary campaigns against anyone who doesn't toe the line and kiss the ring. The Democrats have no such leverage. Their operational interests conflict with the interests of their political base. They mostly seem to come into politics poisoned by Mr Smith Goes to Washington, or The West Wing, and then the people who survive are the ones with more ambition than ideology who do whatever they need to do to ensure incumbency. Their institutional infrastructure seems to be ~five lobbying firms whose only apparent purpose is punching left when their base comes into conflict with corporate donors, and skimming off the top. The only time you will see money weaponized in a meaningful way is to fight against a primary challenge from the left, to include running independents against the primary winner in eg NYC's 2025 mayoral. So goes the "big tent" party. But if by chance an angry left-wing billionaire spontaneously occurred (let's say the Trump vs Musk relationship went down a little differently)... There are tortious weapons sitting on the table unused, which could be put into effect dismantling this flavor of "journalism". As long as red America is being fed cradle-to-grave, violently ethnonationalist propaganda we're going to have a tough time persuading them out of their worldview.

by mapt 1y ago

pstuart 1y ago

I remain convinced that Rather was set up by Karl Rove -- it fits in with his other dirty tricks.

jibal 1y ago
The story wasn't sketchy. Rather's claims about GWB's service were correct and well documented ... it was only the Killian memo that was apparently inauthentic ... but it may well have been transcribed using later technology.
- pstuart 1y ago
  That was the beauty of it -- it changed the story from the known facts about Bush into Rather using forged documents. It was a very clever trick, I'll give him that.
  - jibal 1y ago
    Yes, very Rovian. Of course Rather and CBS can be faulted for not doing due diligence, but this is how the right uses incidental mistakes to obscure the facts.

jibal 1y ago

The story wasn't sketchy. Rather's claims about GWB's service were correct and well documented ... it was only the Killian memo that was apparently inauthentic ... but it may well have been transcribed using later technology.

triceratops 1y ago

> Hogan (Thiel) vs Gawker and Sandy Hook vs Alex Jones provided a blueprint to weaponize defamation law for political change Sandy Hook v Jones was not "political". It was deeply, profoundly personal. The Gawker lawsuit was also about settling personal scores. Obviously Hogan wasn't as sympathetic of a plaintiff as the Sandy Hook parents. But it was more odious because Thiel wanted to punish Gawker simply for hurting his feelings, not lying about him. > So all we need now is an angry left-wing billionaire Is there such a thing?

mapt 1y ago
Perhaps if there was, we wouldn't need to have this conversation. The closest we've got is the zombie husk of liberal George Soros, who is a center-left finance bro from a Holocaust survivor family who isn't fond of authoritarianism. While a constantly mentioned specter of the right (the fact that he's Jewish and talks with a foreign accent factors, for paleoconservatives), and probably the largest single donor to Democratic causes... He isn't actually particularly left-wing, and his work isn't remotely comparable in scope or in aggression to the ideological warfare waged by the Koch Brothers, or the dozens of other billionaires who have joined hand in hand to establish the durable top-down political infrastructure of the GOP. If a politician or pundit just plays along with these people, if you stay loyal to the cause even in the most tortured argument, you will be a made man. There are thousands of positions held open at endowed economics departments, think tanks, lobbying firms, and captive media to reward people who fight the good fight for the right. Lose an election? There is always the possibility of another campaign in another district. Conversely there is a constant threat of well-funded primary campaigns against anyone who doesn't toe the line and kiss the ring. The Democrats have no such leverage. Their operational interests conflict with the interests of their political base. They mostly seem to come into politics poisoned by Mr Smith Goes to Washington, or The West Wing, and then the people who survive are the ones with more ambition than ideology who do whatever they need to do to ensure incumbency. Their institutional infrastructure seems to be ~five lobbying firms whose only apparent purpose is punching left when their base comes into conflict with corporate donors, and skimming off the top. The only time you will see money weaponized in a meaningful way is to fight against a primary challenge from the left, to include running independents against the primary winner in eg NYC's 2025 mayoral. So goes the "big tent" party. But if by chance an angry left-wing billionaire spontaneously occurred (let's say the Trump vs Musk relationship went down a little differently)... There are tortious weapons sitting on the table unused, which could be put into effect dismantling this flavor of "journalism". As long as red America is being fed cradle-to-grave, violently ethnonationalist propaganda we're going to have a tough time persuading them out of their worldview.