31–40 of 74 posts
as a brown guy, i will never have the balls big enough to make comments like this.
As a white guy, I mourn that people of color feel that making comments like this requires courage. It shouldn't require courage at all, for anybody, regardless of color or race or religion or gender or anything . I mourn that people like you have to be more careful in interactions with police or other authorities. It just stinks.
as a brown guy, i will never have the balls big enough to make comments like this.
As a white guy, I mourn that people of color feel that making comments like this requires courage. It shouldn't require courage at all, for anybody, regardless of color or race or religion or gender or anything . I mourn that people like you have to be more careful in interactions with police or other authorities. It just stinks.
This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust. The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to the…
> The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to their viewers. Other countries with stronger libel laws (like the UK) don't have nearly as bad a problem Ever read the Daily Mail, the SUN and co? (Or for that matter the Guardian, for left-sided BS).
The Morning Star would have been a better example...
This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust. The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to the…
Besides, a lot of the truly dangerous misinformation is coming from antagonistic foreign governments, which probably can't be bullied out of doing so over the Internet by mere local criminal laws.
Not to mention that there's plenty of ways to satisfy libel laws and still spread misinformation.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but I don't think it's giving the government the ability to target people for things they say. That'd be a great tool to use to harass political opponents.
This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust. The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to the…
There is also massive corruption problem in the police force, because citizens don't really have effective ways to "watch the watchers". And stronger libel law will definitely be used against people who criticize the police, rightly or wrongly. That being said, misinformation is also a huge problem. So maybe we'll have to find other ways to more effectively hold individuals accountable, whether they're abusing instit…
Is this really true or just the impression given by cherry-picking the worst possible cases nation wide and amplifying them via media?
Define "massive". If you got pulled over, would you be legitimately worried about being tazed or abused?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the UK's notion of libel were applied to the scenario of the article, Robert Frese would be required to prove that his statements were truthful, rather than the police/prosecution proving Robert knew he was lying. That's obscene. Think about how hard each of those would be to prove. To prove he knew he was lying would almost require that he admitted it in writing or was recorded admitting it. But for a man like Ro…
> If the UK's notion of libel were applied to the scenario of the article, Robert Frese would be required to prove that his statements were truthful, rather than the police/prosecution proving Robert knew he was lying. That's obscene. Is it? If he can't prove his statements were true (eg. if he doesn't have hard facts baking him), then why was he making them? That said, often those things (dirty police, dirty corpora…
Shield laws and other legal protections are already incredibly strong in the USA. It would be a mistake to make police practically exempt from public restraint.
I would also be afraid that the media would face more targeting legal attacks and restraints from investigating possible corruption. They operate under the same laws as everyone else.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to get into the impossibility of such a law being at the discretion of law enforcement. Should he be arrested at the next NH primary for his knowingly false statements and their relationship to an actual bomb threat? Probably not, so probably this law is illegal.
Criminal libel laws are at the discretion of law enforcement and prosecutors. Anybody can bring a civil suit for libel. Only 23 states have criminal defamation laws. The problems with defamation being criminal is what the article is about.
It's annoying to always use Trump, but it makes sense to use the person in the position of President to demonstrate that the law without discretion would net big fish.
IMO, law enforcement/DA discretion is ALWAYS a violation of civil rights. Laws would be less prevalent and less severe if they had to be applied equally. If you go through the mental exercise in obvious cases then you end up with a model of how the American System achieves discrimination through populist control of the executive branches and discretion, bypassing constitutional equality for minorities or the otherwise unpopular.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is also massive corruption problem in the police force, because citizens don't really have effective ways to "watch the watchers". And stronger libel law will definitely be used against people who criticize the police, rightly or wrongly. That being said, misinformation is also a huge problem. So maybe we'll have to find other ways to more effectively hold individuals accountable, whether they're abusing instit…
> There is also massive corruption problem in the police force Is this really true or just the impression given by cherry-picking the worst possible cases nation wide and amplifying them via media? Define "massive". If you got pulled over, would you be legitimately worried about being tazed or abused?
This is probably an unpopular opinion, and I'd want to think this through more, but I've been feeling recently that libel laws in the U.S. ought to be stronger. We have a massive problem with propagandists (especially on the right, but also the left) using blatant lies to manipulate opinion. The net result is a huge amount of anger & distrust. The media is a mess. Even mainstream outlets like Fox routinely lie to the…
1) The incentive structures around libel laws are horrible. If you give the US Congress moral and constitutional authority to pass something like what the UK has they will make it very hard to criticise US politicians.
2) "especially on the right, but also the left" is wrong. All media organisations are routinely wrong on all issues - there was an anecdotal named law for this but I've forgotten the name of it, where if the media reports on something that the viewer understands it is obvious all the reporting is wrong, but then the viewer assumes that reporting on subjects they know nothing about is correct. One subgroup can't be more wrong when all of the group is basically all wrong - there is news that is wrong the way the consensus is wrong and then there is news that is wrong in radical new ways.
3) I don't have any examples of abuses of the UK system because the abuses would be suppressed under the libel laws. That is not a sane state of play to assess the merits of libel laws. The US system of messy, public opposition is much better than hiding all the conflict behind a veneer of civility - conflict does not disappear because people don't talk about it publicly.
Just because he was arrested for criminal libel doesn't mean he will be convicted of it. The article does a good job of presenting a high level overview of criminal libel: what it is, what the arguments around it are, and so forth. Read the whole thing.