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He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

nytimes.com

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Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#61

Post by darkpuma »

yayana wrote: post #54
darkpuma wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're missing is that civil defamation suits are not at the discretion of prosecutors.

I am talking about whether Trump is theoretically guilty or not guilty of criminal defemation if 1(NH) or more (23) states claimed their jurisdiction applied and why that being discretionary in those states is therefore extremely problematic to our civic system. I'm not sure why you are interested in civil defemation law.

Trump has certainly defamed many people in a civil manner as well. If you understand why there seem to be so few civil suits against Trump for defamation, you will be closer to understanding why there are so few criminal cases against him for the same.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#62

Post by cruella_deville »

darkpuma wrote: post #61
yayana wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am talking about whether Trump is theoretically guilty or not guilty of criminal defemation if 1(NH) or more (23) states claimed their jurisdiction applied and why that being discretionary in those states is therefore extremely problematic to our civic system. I'm not sure why you are interested in civil defemation law.

Trump has certainly defamed many people in a civil manner as well. If you understand why there seem to be so few civil suits against Trump for defamation, you will be closer to understanding why there are so few criminal cases against him for the same.

[dead]

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#63

Post by [deleted] »

nsedlet wrote: post #10

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…

[deleted]

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#64

Post by matt4077 »

darkpuma wrote: post #58
davvolun wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, thanks for linking to that. Note that the "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect" is a discussion point by a popular novelist, not a well-researched psychological concept. Frankly, without deeper research into the concept, it's a quote from an famous person.

It wouldn't find any traction if it didn't ring true with a lot of people. I don't need it to be a "well-researched psychological concept" if I've personally experienced it. Years ago when local papers were still relevant, there was a local paper article about me and three other people. They got the details hilariously wrong. Everything was totally backwards. There was no plausible motive for malice, they just got ev…

I feel that there's a sort of wide-spread cynicism that has far overshot its mark: people routinely disparage journalism, even though the better publishers (NYT, Economist, WSJ, etc) today are in my impression far better than ever before.

They are, for example, exemplary in terms of correcting errors quickly and transparently. I rarely come across errors these days, and the ones I see corrected below articles are almost always very minor, such as spelling errors in names.

In some circles, such as HN, it also seems to be en vogue to consider all media biased and unprofessional, every politician to be corrupt, every business leader as optimising (short term) profit with no regard for other considerations, every scientific study underpowered, and every headline clickbait.

I guess gratuitous negativity is often mistaken for expertise or intelligence. But in reality, it just renders any actual effort useless: why not be corrupt/lazy/incompetent/etc, when that is the charge that will be levelled against you, no matter what you do?

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#65

Post by coldtea »

darkpuma wrote: post #60
coldtea wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anybody bother to criticize them if they're going to jail at the end of their campaign anyway (as is the premise in this thread)?

Surely you understand that people criticize murderes who are being sent to prison; you don't question why they bother. Why would people stop criticizing a politician simply because they know that politician will be going to jail? This whole conversation has become very silly. It's plain that criminal libel is an awful idea, we can joke about silly scenarios that might unfold if people facing criminal libel charges we…

>Why would people stop criticizing a politician simply because they know that politician will be going to jail?

They could, but it would be futile. The politician is not going to govern anybody anyway (remember, straight to jail from the end of their campaign).

Besides, surely you understand that this thread has stretched a BS hypothetical.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#66

Post by coldtea »

digianarchist wrote: post #33
coldtea wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

Did you just throw the Guardian in the same list as some of Britain's worst tabloids? The Morning Star would have been a better example...

>Did you just throw the Guardian in the same list as some of Britain's worst tabloids?

Yeah, it's just as much as a tabloid, only for a different market group who considers themselves more refined.

Nothing actually high brow there...

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#67

Post by davvolun »

darkpuma wrote: post #58
davvolun wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, thanks for linking to that. Note that the "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect" is a discussion point by a popular novelist, not a well-researched psychological concept. Frankly, without deeper research into the concept, it's a quote from an famous person.

It wouldn't find any traction if it didn't ring true with a lot of people. I don't need it to be a "well-researched psychological concept" if I've personally experienced it. Years ago when local papers were still relevant, there was a local paper article about me and three other people. They got the details hilariously wrong. Everything was totally backwards. There was no plausible motive for malice, they just got ev…

You don't need it to be a "well-researched psychological concept" if you've personally experienced it, but that does absolutely nothing to convince me, and further, you should carefully weigh your own anecdotal experience versus others' experiences. Maybe the reporting in your particular case was just really, really bad? How would you know? Maybe 99.9% of journalism is completely accurate and you just happened to fit into the 0.1%... if you can't definitively disprove what I'm saying, then I don't think you should be so confident in your conclusion.

As for "it would find any traction if it didn't ring true with a lot of people." A lot of people throughout history have believed a lot of unscientific things. I don't believe we've reached a point of enlightenment where we no longer do that. Science not infrequently finds the truth is not what we expected, not what our intuition would lead us to believe.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#68

Post by darkpuma »

davvolun wrote: post #67
darkpuma wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't find any traction if it didn't ring true with a lot of people. I don't need it to be a "well-researched psychological concept" if I've personally experienced it. Years ago when local papers were still relevant, there was a local paper article about me and three other people. They got the details hilariously wrong. Everything was totally backwards. There was no plausible motive for malice, they just got ev…

You don't need it to be a "well-researched psychological concept" if you've personally experienced it, but that does absolutely nothing to convince me, and further, you should carefully weigh your own anecdotal experience versus others' experiences. Maybe the reporting in your particular case was just really, really bad? How would you know? Maybe 99.9% of journalism is completely accurate and you just happened to fit…

Maybe you've never experienced it because you've never read an article about something you're an expert on? Nobody said that everybody experiences it.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#69

Post by darkpuma »

coldtea wrote: post #65
darkpuma wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you understand that people criticize murderes who are being sent to prison; you don't question why they bother. Why would people stop criticizing a politician simply because they know that politician will be going to jail? This whole conversation has become very silly. It's plain that criminal libel is an awful idea, we can joke about silly scenarios that might unfold if people facing criminal libel charges we…

> Why would people stop criticizing a politician simply because they know that politician will be going to jail? They could, but it would be futile. The politician is not going to govern anybody anyway (remember, straight to jail from the end of their campaign). Besides, surely you understand that this thread has stretched a BS hypothetical.

> "They could, but it would be futile. The politician is not going to govern anybody anyway (remember, straight to jail from the end of their campaign)."

You've a strange notion of how people behave. People still routinely criticize Bush and Obama, even though neither will ever be in office again. That's how people are.

Re: He Disparaged the Police on Facebook, So They Arrested Him

#70

Post by MrTonyD »

MrTonyD wrote: post #20
qbz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said an officer is corrupt and that the chief is covering it up. The NYT calls this "disparaging", but it clearly goes way beyond badmouthing.

I've known a few policemen here in the USA - and every one of them was corrupt. So in this case the law may not make sense.

I share my very real world experience of police in the USA, and I get downvoted for it. I must be posting on Hacker News. (I now consider it a badge of honor to get downvoted. It means those who can't entertain disconfirming thoughts have been offended.)
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