I have never seen a Twitter mob manage to avoid the use of libelous claims. This begs the question, what could be done to protect people from online mobs? What relief do you think unions could provide?
A very focused rider required on contracts that employment can't be terminated due to political speech outside of work hours. Make that one of a small handful of similar riders required by companies to hire 'union' members and I think you'd end up with a LOT of people joining that union.
It would remove a lot of leverage of the twitter mobs if they know ahead of time the target is protected.
Define "political speech," bearing in mind that everything that can be proven not to be "political speech" under that definition is implicitly fair game as grounds for termination in this case.
I'm familiar with the standards and I stand by my assessment with full confidence. Twitter mobs routinely make up facts and spread completely unfounded misinformation that is demonstrably contrary to what evidence suggests. That's 3/4 of the criteria right then and there.
[0] To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.
Now what you need to do is show damages. Lost your job? Deplatformed or demonetized? Vendors, partners, or clients cut ties? Victim of harassment (online or otherwise)?
You haven't demonstrated negligence. Nor did you demonstrate that the statement was made seriously. Elon musk called someone a "pedo guy" because he moved to Thailand, and was found to be fine because a reasonable person wouldn't take the statement seriously. Threading the needle between protected hyperbole and protected good faith mistakes is practically speaking not feasible. Negligence is a higher standard than what you seem to believe.
Keep in mind, making an accusation not totally supported by evidence is not defamation. In the US, it falls on the defamed to both prove that the accusation is false and prove that the accuser knew it was false. Not that they had doubts or uncertainty, but that they knowingly lied. Making an ultimately incorrect acusation based on incomplete evidence isn't legally negligent.
[0]Negligence is "a failure to behave with the level of care that someone of ordinary prudence would have exercised under the same circumstances."
Essentially, it comes down to what a reasonable person would do.
A reasonable person would probably not invent claims without evidence. Let's take the Kyle Rittenhouse case as the example since it's so recent and visible. The Twitter mob openly calls this individual a murderer, white supremacist, and terrorist, among other things. They also invent and distribute "facts" which are material to the case such as where the individual got the AR-15 used during the event, and the circumstances surrounding its use. [1]Significant effort is undertaken to obfuscate the truth through the editing of video footage and censoring of contrary opinions.
> Elon musk called someone a "pedo guy" because he moved to Thailand, and was found to be fine because a reasonable person wouldn't take the statement seriously.
This is clearly not the case when dealing with situations like the above, and many others which lead to individuals being deplatformed, harassed, or physically threatened, or even attacked. There can be no doubt that claims of racism, sexism, homophobia, or other bigotry are taken seriously by all the major platforms and society as a whole. It is common knowledge that such claims cause harm.
A reasonable person would not make damaging claims without any supporting evidence, manufacture fake evidence, or aid in the distribution of either.
But there is supporting evidence for all of those claims. It is not ironclad (or you may disagree with it). But they are not claims made without evidence. And reasonable people can, and do, disagree about specific pieces of evidence.
Furthermore, repeating a rumor is not negligent. So if I make a claim without evidence, but you repeat it and cite me, only I have done something wrong.
To get concrete, there is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse murdered someone. He's been charged with first-degree intentional homicide, this is Wisconsin's equivalent of Murder.
There is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist. He travelled across state lines to disrupt and intimidate people at a protest for racial justice. While he may not be a card carrying neo-nazi, that's evidence.
There is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a terrorist. He (presumably) unlawfully used violence and intimidation against civilians for political purposes. He's listed on wikipedia's list of right-wing terrorists in the US[0].
So now you have to show that not only are the above statements false, but that they are so blatantly false, that it is unreasonable for a person to believe them, and that to reach those conclusions would require negligence. But of course, you can't really do that. Wikipedia agreeing with me pretty much proves that my claims aren't unreasonable. They may be wrong, but they aren't negligently so.
> They also invent and distribute "facts" which are material to the case such as where the individual got the AR-15 used during the event, and the circumstances surrounding its use.
Coming to incorrect conclusions after good faith investigation isn't negligent. At the moment, as far as I know, Rittenhouse got his rifle within the state of Wisconsin, from a friend. But not knowing that information, it is not unreasonable and negligent to state "He must have acquired the gun illegally, since he is underage and can't transport it across state lines." That's a reasonable conclusion. It's wrong, yes, but it's reasonable.
> This is clearly not the case when dealing with situations like the above,
Just to be clear, you are saying that it is reasonable for a person to call someone else a pedophile without any evidence, but calling someone who shot and killed someone else, on video, a murderer, is negligent? Am I getting that right?
Previously I said that you misunderstand negligence. I'll repeat what I said and add that it appears that you, personally, have an extraordinary level of prudence. Which is totally acceptable, and perhaps even an admirable trait. But it is not ordinary. Legally speaking, you appear to be "unreasonable".
TLDR - At the time the claims were made, there was not enough evidence available to make any potentially defamatory claims. If the same standards were applied to financial reporting, the reporters would be in jail already.
> To get concrete, there is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse murdered someone. He's been charged with first-degree intentional homicide, this is Wisconsin's equivalent of Murder.
These claims were coming out prior to him being charged and prior to any credible sources reporting details of the story. There was an organized attempt to get ahead of the narrative and paint a particular picture of the events. The fact that it's actually rather difficult to find the details of the 'victims' and their criminal histories is one indicator of that. The below cited debate on the wiki entry is another. And that is without diving into the twitter discourse where it's possible to find every level of bad faith "debate"
> There is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist. He travelled across state lines to disrupt and intimidate people at a protest for racial justice. While he may not be a card carrying neo-nazi, that's evidence.
He worked in Kenosha as a lifeguard, and was there cleaning up the neighborhood [0]unarmed earlier in the day. Saying his presence there is evidence is like saying that my fingerprints inside my own home are evidence of whatever crime may have happened there.
> There is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a terrorist. He (presumably) unlawfully used violence and intimidation against civilians for political purposes. He's listed on wikipedia's list of right-wing terrorists in the US[0].
This "evidence" came into existence after the claims were already circulating. [1]The original entry was Kenosha Riots, and there is ongoing organized action to alter the title and information to change the narrative. None of the sources listed existed at the time that the defamatory claims were made.
> Coming to incorrect conclusions after good faith investigation isn't negligent.
There was no investigation, so there cannot have been good faith in the investigation. The individuals claiming he 'crossed state lines with an illegal AR-15' are making multiple false claims at once. He didn't cross state lines to participate, he was already there. He didn't cross with the AR-15, it was given to him by a WI state resident. Even the possession of the weapon itself may not have been illegal as the state statutes leave wiggle room that has yet to be explored.
The ultimate point is that the people who initiated many of these claims are journalists and news publications who should have made a good faith effort to produce accurate reports. They failed miserably to do so, and their reports still carry significant inaccuracies. Some of these reports featured video clips that were edited to better support the narrative. None of these reports, at least that I've been able to find, show all of the video evidence that is public thus far.
> Just to be clear, you are saying that it is reasonable for a person to call someone else a pedophile without any evidence, but calling someone who shot and killed someone else, on video, a murderer, is negligent? Am I getting that right?
Not exactly. I'm saying that Elon Musk is one individual who has no following because of his 'investigative journalism' credentials. He's just a dude who is rather well known for being 'out there'. On the other hand, people absolutely do follow CNN & & & as a 'credible' source for such reporting.
None of what you've said actually matters. Again, the standard isn't that you need to be correct, but that the statements you make would be made by a reasonable person. They can all be ultimatelywrong as long as they aren't unreasonable.
It isn't unreasonable to call someone who shot someone else a murderer. It just is not.
It is not unreasonable to conclude that someone who travelled to another state and then shot someone was doing so for nefarious reasons. It may be wrong, but it isn't unresonable.
> This "evidence" came into existence after the claims were already circulating
I'm not saying that using the Wikipedia article is evidence for the claim. I'm saying that the claim cannot be unreasonable if wikipedia ultimately reached the same conclusion.
Again, you don't need to cite someone else to be not defamatory. As long as the statement, standing alone, isn't unreasonable, you're good.
> None of these reports, at least that I've been able to find, show all of the video evidence that is public thus far.
That doesn't make them defamatory.
> Not exactly. I'm saying that Elon Musk is one individual who has no following because of his 'investigative journalism' credentials.
Your original complaint was about random individuals in twitter mobs making defamatory statements. They also have no credentials. So are you now saying that actually all the random people on Twitter are fine, but it's CNN and NBC and the news organizations that are making defamatory claims?
Because that's a reach. You really think you know defamation better than the lawyers who work for those companies and specialize in defamation?
> It isn't unreasonable to call someone who shot someone else a murderer. It just is not.
How about KKK member, white supremacist, racist, etc?
> It is not unreasonable to conclude that someone who travelled to another state and then shot someone was doing so for nefarious reasons. It may be wrong, but it isn't unreasonable.
This isn't what happened and there is substantial evidence that demonstrates this. He didn't travel there for that reason, he was there when it started because he works there. He traveled a shorter distance 'into another state' than from me to my local mall.
> Because that's a reach. You really think you know defamation better than the lawyers who work for those companies and specialize in defamation?
[0]Lin Wood, (Kyle's lawyer) recently won multiple defamation cases, one of which was against CNN for their poor coverage of the Nick Sandmann case. He's quite literally an expert in the field. I'm happy to let him sort things out.
> Your original complaint was about random individuals in twitter mobs making defamatory statements. They also have no credentials. So are you now saying that actually all the random people on Twitter are fine, but it's CNN and NBC and the news organizations that are making defamatory claims?
They aren't "fine" but they are not the originators of the harm. The so-called journalists intentionally editing video to alter narratives, and large organizations that are trying to alter the publicly available information are absolutely not fine.
And my original point was that I've not seen Twitter mobs (as a collective) avoid crossing the line. However, you can't go after a mob, you can only go after the most important individuals fanning the flames.
I already explained why calling him a white supremacist isn't unresonable. Calling him a KKK member likely falls under the exceptions for hyperbole. And are you saying CNN has called him a KKK member?
You can't use CNN because a twitter user called someone a white supremacist after CNN correctly reported on events and someone else says something inflammatory. Either you can go after CNN for the reporting it does, or you can go after random twitter users for inflammatory stuff, but understand that you already said that that was okay when you claimed musk was "different".
And just a note, Lin Wood did not win a case against CNN. The Sandmann case was settled out of court. Please don't defame CNN like that.
